A rather unusual aspect of the Christmas story is that the newborn baby Jesus is laid in a manger, a feeding trough for animals, instead of a crib. Mary and Joseph are traveling to Bethlehem to be registered. When they get there, there is no room for them in the place where guests normally spend the night. Despite the fact that Mary is imminently expecting a child, nobody makes room for them inside. Instead, they are sent to spend the night in the stable, with the domestic animals. There, Mary has her baby, Jesus. She makes the best of a bad situation: she swaddles her baby in strips of cloth and in lieu of a crib, she lays him in the animals’ feeding trough, the manger [Luke 2:3-7].
This seems like a simple tale of poverty and necessity, and it is. But then the story takes an unusual turn. Some shepherds in the fields nearby are visited by angels, who tell them that the Messiah has just been born in Bethlehem. They are invited to go and visit him, and they are directed to look for him swaddled in strips of cloth and lying in a manger [Luke 2:8-12]. Sure enough, they go, and they find the baby Jesus in the manger, exactly as the angels had said [Luke 2:15-16]. Thus the act of necessity, this putting of the newborn baby Jesus in a manger rather than a crib, has become more than merely an act of coping in hard times, it has become a sign from God to the shepherds that the baby Jesus is the Messiah.
Who is the Messiah? He is a prophesied leader of the people of Israel, sent by God, who will save the people. These people of Israel are originally shepherds: descended from Jacob, a shepherd who had built up flocks for himself and his family through clever husbandry of his father-in-law’s sheep [Genesis 30:25-42]. When Jacob returned to his own country, in a moment of crisis, when he and all his family were in danger, he wrestled with God, at which point God gives him a new name, Israel [Genesis 32:24-28]. God granted him peace with his enemies in his homeland. It is Jacob’s descendants who became the Israelites.
But Jacob is not the only shepherd-leader in Israel’s history. Many years after, the Israelites had become slaves in Egypt. They were led to freedom by Moses, an Israelite who, despite a privileged upbringing, had fled Egypt in fear of his life, becoming a shepherd in Midian. There, while watching his father-in law’s sheep, he encountered God in a vision of a burning bush [Exodus 3:1-6]. God called Moses to lead his people to freedom from slavery in Egypt, and he did, bringing them out of Egypt, with their flocks and herds, back to their homeland to live in freedom.
But as time passed, the Israelites who were living in that land were oppressed and needed a leader who would help them defeat their enemies that surrounded them. God chose for them a king, David, a shepherd from Bethlehem [1 Samuel 16:11-13]. King David because a great king of the Jewish people, defeating the enemy champion Goliath with his shepherd’s sling [1 Samuel 17:4-51]. Through David’s leadership, God saved the nation from the enemies that surrounded them. God promised David that the Messiah would be his descendant, and indeed the baby Jesus, that child laid in the manger in Bethlehem, was descended from David [Matthew 1:1-16, Luke 3:23-38, Revelation 22:16].
By allowing the child Jesus to be laid in a manger in Bethlehem, and then using that manger as a sign to shepherds that Jesus is the Messiah, God connects Jesus to the rich history of Israel’s shepherd leaders: Jacob, Moses and David, each of whom were called by God to save his people. Jesus, too, is a savior. But it is not from enemy nations or slavers that Jesus frees the people, it is from sin, more harmful and enslaving than any enemy. Jesus, when grown, will use the image of a good shepherd to explain God’s salvation, a good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. Indeed, Jesus himself, the good shepherd, will lay down his life for his people on the cross, and not his people only, but all people. Jesus, this baby swaddled in strips of cloth and laid in a manger, is the Messiah who will save us from sin.
Agapios Theophilus
Agapios Theophilus is the "nom de plume" of a catholic layman who has loved Jesus from when, as a young boy in the 1970s, he first learned about him. His First Communion, at the age of seven, was the happiest day of his life, and he celebrates its anniversary each year. He lives in a large city with his beloved wife, two wonderful children, and an affectionate orange and white cat. He has no formal qualifications whatsoever to write about Jesus: he writes only because he has been given the great gift of knowing and loving him, and he would like others to come to know and love him too. See Agapios' posts at https://sites.google.com/view/agapios-theophilus and follow Agapios on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/a9apios
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