THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR
"Born in a Manger”
Rev.
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prca.orgDear radio friends,
The same wonderful
blessed gospel is ours today: Jesus
Christ was born in a manger. We read the
Word of God in Luke
2:6, 7: “And so it was, that, while
they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and
wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid hi in a
manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”
Joy, great joy;
happiness, true happiness, is ours. That
is what we read in verse 10 of Luke 2: “And the angel said unto them, Fear
not: for, behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” That is the Word of God to His children
today. Great joy! What is that great joy? Verse 11:
“For unto you is born this day in the city of
The great joy of
salvation is ours today as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. The heart of God proclaims today
the gospel that we need to hear. For God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever liveth and believeth in Him should not perish but have
eternal life. God gave His Son exactly
in the way that sinners need Him. God
did not give His Son in an oval office.
God did not place His Son on a battlefield. God did not see to it that His Son was the
head of a university. But He was born in
a manger. That is, God saw to it that
His own Son came under the shocking, the awful, the filthy, the stinking pile
of our sins, so that He might bear them away, so that we might be free and
follow Him to heaven and to glory. Great
joy is ours today. A Savior is
born. Jesus Christ, the Lord.
The birth of our
Savior is another of the foundation stones on which rests the church’s
salvation. Jesus must come exactly this
way. He must not come as a Congressman,
introducing social reform and bills for further education. He must not come as a general outflanking the
enemy. He must not come as a
psychologist with tips for healthy living.
But He must come as a Savior from sin, from its damning guilt, its
power, its awful power. He must come as
a Savior from sin.
Do you long for
this Savior? Do you long, by God’s
grace, that the guilt of your sin be lifted from your soul, that you be
released from its awful power? Do you mourn, are you troubled over your sin? Unto you is born a Savior—Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ came into the world to save
sinners, said Paul, of whom I am chief.
Let us focus on the
manger for a few moments today. Every
detail of the birth of Jesus Christ was arranged just so by God. There are absolutely no mistakes, no tragedy
of circumstances. Everything is perfect. The only place for God’s Son to be born was
in a manger, in order that you and I may weep over our sins, and in order that
you and I may shout to God in praise for His inexpressible and immeasurable
love.
It was in a stable,
perhaps a cave or a shed, near the inn in
First of all, the grandiose
plans of Caesar Augustus, when Caesar decided that all the world should be
taxed. Joseph and Mary, we read in Luke 2,
who lived in
The second thing
that God used to bring Joseph and Mary to that manger was the cold indifference
of the travelers in
Why did not Joseph
get there sooner? Why did he not stop
earlier? Why did not some people give up
their accommodations? There might have
been human reasons for that. But when
you know who this child is and the depravity of your own human heart, you do
not need to ask those questions. You
know.
The third thing
that God used was Mary’s labor pains. We
read, “the days were accomplished that she should be
delivered.” God, who forms the bones of
each child, set the moment of her contractions.
Mary went into labor on that night because God chose that then was the
time for His Son to be born.
No, I do not
believe that Joseph and Mary would choose this place (a barn or a stable) for
their child to be born. There simply was
no other place. God put Mary into labor
so that she would lie on straw, on a barn floor, and give birth with the stench
of manure in her nostrils; so that she would lay her first fragile baby in a
feed-trough, a manger, probably a hollowed-out stone that cattle could not
upset while feeding on grain. And God
saw to it that He was wrapped in discarded pieces of cloth (swaddling
clothes). God did that. God, who is wonderful in power, marvelous in
His doings, brought it to pass exactly this way. If ever He brought something to pass (and He
brings all things to pass), He certainly brought this to pass. For He had planned it eternally,
and it long lay in His heart. He
led Joseph and Mary, as you would lead blind people. He brought them exactly to this place, to the
stable. He prepared every condition, as
you would lead guests to a room that you got ready for them. That is the way He always works. He performs His wonders intentionally.
Mary brought forth
her firstborn son.
Our Lord Jesus
Christ is truly a man. He was born. He is a baby.
He cries. He has come under the vanity
of this world. God’s Son in the flesh is
now under the curse of our sins, the curse that we deserve. The carol has: “The little Lord Jesus, no crying He
makes.” No! He cried.
In fact we can say that no child ever cried like this child. For He bears the sin of the
world of God’s church. God has
laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He
is a weakened man, apparently He is helpless.
He is exposed. There are
unsanitary conditions. And within a few
months Mary would bundle Him up in the middle of the night and flee from
This was the
firstborn Son of God.
The significance is
not simply to repeat that Mary is a virgin and that Jesus had opened her
womb—that there were other children Mary would have with Joseph, so Jesus is
the firstborn of Mary. That Jesus is the
firstborn suggests something far greater.
For the Holy Spirit tells us who Jesus is. He is more than just the firstborn of
Mary. We read in Colossians
1:15 that He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every
creature, and in verse 18, He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
that in all things he might have the preeminence. He is God’s firstborn, meaning He is God’s
heir. God intends that this Jesus, born
of Mary, inherit all things. God has
made all things for Him. As God’s
firstborn He is Lord—Lord of lords, King of kings. And He has the preeminence. He has first place, above all other things.
Now look into the
manger. The Babe that is wrapped in rags
and placed where cows eat is God’s heir, for whom all things were made and by
whom all things continue to exist. He is
God’s mighty Son, Lord of all. He is the
One who measured the water in the hollow of His hands and meted out the heavens
with a span. He is the eternal Son of
God, glorious God.
He is in a
cave. And He is heading toward another
cave—the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And in between those two caves will be His
suffering and death, His rejection and His crucifixion upon a cross. He is the Savior.
We look into this
manger, this place that was prepared for God’s Son. For God laid Him in a manger. And later on God would nail Him to a
tree. And later on God would place His
Son in a tomb. Why?
The answer is very
familiar if you are acquainted with the Scriptures. II
Corinthians 8:9 reads: “For ye know
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” God put our sin on His Son, born of
Mary. God put Him in our place. God put Him on trial for our offenses. The manger represents all of this. It represents God placing His Son, now in the
flesh, the holy child Jesus, in the place of those whom He has eternally
chosen, under the awful debt of our sins.
That is why He must be there. No
one else would put Him there. No one. No
grandmother would allow it. No mother
would stand for it. The child protection
agencies of our country would prosecute any parents who would place their child
in a manger. Their
newborn? In a place where cattle
eat grain?
But this is
Jesus. He shall save His people from
their sins. That is where He has to be
born, in squalor.
You can understand
all of this if you know your sins, if you know them today. If God’s Son is to come into my place, where
must He be born? Where would our sins
place us? In a
beautiful estate? No. Look at the manger.
And then look at
the manger, not as it is presented on Christmas cards, in a peaceful and cozy
sense. But look at the manger as one who
is there in the misery of your sin.
After the Civil
War, a painting was made of one of the last desperate battles of the Civil War,
a desperate, bloody battle in which the bodies were piled up. The picture intended to portray the
fighting. The faces of the men were
filled with courage. One veteran said to
the painter: “But it didn’t look that
way to us.”
Shall we gloss the
manger over? Shall we make it
pretty? Shall we make it cozy? Shall we make it pleasant?
It did not look
that way to Him.
To Him the manger
was the moment when He assumed the curse of our sins, when He began to grapple
with that curse, in order that He might overcome and destroy the awful stench
and weight and guilt of our sins.
Behold, the love of God who gives His Son. And bow in worship.
The manger says a
couple of things about Jesus, and it says something about us.
It says, first of
all, that Jesus Christ came into this world without anything of this world. Poorest, cast-off. He had nothing to cover His nakedness. He had no bed. He had no shelter that was offered to
Him. And it never changed. Later on He would say, “Foxes have holes, and
the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His
head.” Not one thing of this world came
to aid Him. Nothing of
this world. Did one thing come
from you for your salvation? Did one
thing from this world contribute to salvation?
One thing?
Did earth supply one thing to help?
The answer is: NO! He did it all alone. He saved us all alone.
Secondly, the
manger declares that He was cast out of the world. For He is in the manger
because there is no room for Him in the inn. Did the world want Him and His
salvation? Was the world, in the
midnight of its sin, ready to receive Him as the promised Savior? No.
No, He had no place. He was cast
out. They tried to kill Him, especially
when He told them that He was the Savior from sin—when He made very plain that
man’s problem is that he is a sinner deserving hell and that He alone could be
the Savior. It was especially then that
they cast Him out, that they tried to push Him off a
cliff, that they were ready to throw stones at Him. There was no room for Him. He was not wanted. Was He wanted by the religious people, the
scribes and the Pharisees, the ones who said that they knew God? Did they accept Him? Oh, no.
They hated Him. He was not
received.
What about us. Would we have been any different? Would we have done something? Would we, of ourselves, have given Him a
room? You like to think so? The answer of the Bible is, No, you would not
have—not of yourself. For every sin that
you have ever committed said: No room
for Him! I have room for cursing and
lying and hatred and lust and jealousy. But no room for Him.
We do not have room for Him.
That is why we, as
the children of God, worship Him in a manger—because we know that our salvation
is not of ourselves. It is of Him. The manger tells us something about ourselves.
It declares that Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief. All the poverty, all the awfulness, all the
smelliness, all the shame, all the degradation of the manger is ours. He came into our place. He took our sin. He touched us. He drew near.
He was wrapped up in our sins. And, therefore, never was God’s Son so beautiful to sinners as the night that He was laid in a
manger. For I see there the
too-good-to-be-true grace and mercy and love of God in giving His Son to take
our sins in order that the beauty of His Son might be ours.
Our response must
be that we bow in worship. God gave His
Son for us. That is the most valuable
thing ever. Let us confess Him. Let us glory in His holy name. God gave His Son for us in the way that we
need Him. He sent His Son to assume the
responsibility, to bear the debt of our sin in order that He might nail it to
the tree and deliver us from it. God
sent Him down into the squalor of our sin and death in order that we might be
lifted to the glory of His majesty. We
must and we can now only fall on our faces before Him, not as a block of wood,
but with heart and soul, and cry out, “Thanks be to
God for His unspeakable gift.” We must
do this with our families. We must do
this as the congregation of the Lord on this day. We must cry out of God’s amazing grace and
love.
And the response of
faith will be not only our words of praise, but our entire life. We cannot live as the world does if this word
has been made known unto us. Then our
life will be forever and fundamentally different. We will have the grace of repentance. We will serve Him. We will be humble before Him. And we will live in happiness and joy and
peace.
Now, let us go and
tell others of the great things that the Lord hath done for us. For He has so loved us that He gave His Son
to be born in a manger in order that we might inherit the heavens.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank
Thee for the Word of God. And we do ask
for Thy blessing upon that Word in our hearts in this day. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.