The WAY in a manger?

Luke 2:7
7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

It’s not all that hard to find Jesus Christ in the Christmas story. I took a stab at it, and lo and behold, there He was in second chapter of Luke. So I decided to find His crucifixion in the Christmas story. Somewhere in this beautiful account of the Savior of mankind being born an innocent baby has to be a pointer, an arrow that directs us toward His ultimate sacrifice.

I’ve often heard people ask the question, “If Jesus was God, did He know what was going to happen even when He was a baby?” The first problem with this question is “if”. Asking “if” implies that there is a possibility that He isn’t God. So I’ll address that first. Yes, Jesus is God. Now, on to the second half of the question. Since the answer to the “if” question was yes, then it stands that the answer to the second half would have to be yes as well. Since Jesus is God, then He knows what is going to happen to Him in the future.

Now that we’ve established Jesus is God and He knows His future, even as a baby, we come back to the first question, which has now become the third question: is there a hidden pointer to the crucifixion in the birth story of Jesus? Of course I believe the answer is yes. But what is the pointer? For that, a vocabulary lesson.

The New Testament was written in Greek. The Greek word for swaddling is sparganoo, from the root word sparganon, which means “to strap or wrap with strips....to confine movement”. The next word is manger, translated from the Greek word phatne, meaning a feeding trough or stall. What was the purpose of a manger? It was a place where food was laid out by the shepherd for the flock to come and eat.

Now I can tie this all together for you. Baby Jesus’ entire body was wrapped in strips of fabric, restricting His movement and keeping Him safe. Later in life, Jesus was whipped with strips of leather that wrapped around His entire body while His movement was restricted. Baby Jesus was laid down in a manger made of wood to rest. Jesus, the Christ, was laid on a cross made of wood to give us rest. Finally there is His placement in the manger. Obviously this was a busy time in Bethlehem, so surely we can assume there were a lot of animals in town as well. Somehow, however, Mary and Joseph managed to find a manger that was empty and they filled it with this baby. The ultimate importance of this story is Jesus being placed in a basket where food goes. Later, during the Last Supper, He refers to Himself as the Bread and tells His disciples to eat.

Jesus didn’t come just to be the food, but also to be the shepherd. His words, not mine! (paraphrased) Not only does He want us to eat freely, but He continually lays out more for us. Every day we go to Jesus the richness of His glory supplies us nourishment. Every time we wake up hungry, He is our supply and our supplier. Jesus, through His death and resurrection, became the freely offered food for us, His flock. He took our sins, our faults, and our curses with Him to the cross, and in exchange He gave us His grace, riches, and righteousness. He knew, even as a baby, that He would die to restore our relationship. He designed even His birth story to show the magnitude of His grace and the abundance of His sacrifice.