A Manger Meditation

For all the times I’ve heard it, I still can’t wrap my mind around God choosing to come to earth, as a baby, under Roman rule, as one considered illegitimate, not in a grand house or even a hotel but in a place smelling of barn animals.
And yet, his humble beginning makes perfect sense.

Jesus began his life in poverty and banishment.
He was not allowed to be born or to die as anything but an outcast man. "Outside the city" (Hebrews 13:12) was his position as he entered and as he left our earth. (Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889)

We learn from the manger that, from the very start, Jesus came for the ordinary, the overlooked, those outside acceptable circles. Mary was an ordinary girl from a disreputable town; outcast shepherds were visited by an angelic choir; pagan astrologers came to bow before the Messiah of Israel, where well-bred Israelites were notably absent.

He has come to your face, O man, because you were unable to reach His face, and he who was invisible has become visible for your redemption.
(Peter Chrysologus, 406-450)

In the crude humility of a feeding trough, we see how very far down God had to reach to have a relationship with us. Try as they might to reach towards Him, the nation of Israel had already proven it impossible for man to find his own way to God through living by His laws. Imperfect people simply cannot perfectly love and obey a holy God! God Himself reached down through the vast expanse between heaven and earth, between our fallen nature and his utter holiness, and opened the way for us to have a relationship with Him.

So, at the time of his birth, Christ, through whom every place was created, finds no place in the inn; and he who is Lord of all the world is born as though a foreigner, to enable us to be citizens whose homeland in haven. (Peter Chrysologus, 406-450)

He came as a an infant, vulnerable and helpless. From childhood, he was hunted, ridiculed, disbelieved, mocked. A sin-dark world shaded its eyes against such dazzling light: the literal embodiment of God’s love. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:4 )

Rest assured that He did not come in such a way and live such a life in order to have a polite, well-dressed acquaintance with you on Sunday mornings! Instead, He came to know you and be known by you, intimately. Jesus meets us in the lowest places of life, in the mire of sin, in secret guilt and private shame, in those moments when you lose our temper with your child or give in -- again -- to a vice you hate. He came with open arms to lift you from the muck, to wash you clean, to be your brother and Saviour and friend and Lord.

We may fear to approach a throne, but we cannot fear to approach a manger. (Charles Spurgeon)

The King of Kings and Lord of Lords came not as a rich prince in a palace, but as a small baby in a borrowed manger. He calls you to see His face, to know His salvation, and to bow in worship before Him, just as those shepherds and wise men did all those years ago.