On Wednesday afternoons, several women in my neighbourhood sit in front of our computers doing an online simple English Bible study. We are allowed meet face-to-face now, but zoom has suited us well. We began during lockdown.
The other ladies in the group are mothers of international students at a local high school. They are happy to study the Bible if they can get English language lessons at the same time. I’m happy to teach English language lessons if I can introduce truths from the Bible at the same time. We all give and take a bit, but I think I speak for us all when I say that we are all getting so much more from the lessons than we had anticipated.
Last week’s lessons was, not surprisingly, from Luke 2. It was the story of Jesus’ birth. For me it is ‘old hat’, but for these ladies, it was fresh.
One of their questions stumped me. Let me explain.
An English lesson
I usually introduce vocabulary that they mightn’t know and any background to the passage which they need in order to understand it. Then we go through it section by section, reading and discussing it.
Luke 2:1-21 actually required quite a lot of pre-teaching. First there was the historical and geographical setting of the passage.
The ladies hadn’t learnt about the Roman Empire back when they were in school. They knew about the Mongolian Kingdom from the 13th century though. It spanned from Eastern Europe all the way across Asia and down into parts of the Middle East. In a similar way, I explained, the Roman Empire covered many parts of the world in the 1st century, including Europe and North Africa, parts of the Middle East and West Asia. I had maps ready to share through zoom and we located the various places mentioned in the Luke 2, including Syria and Israel, as well as Rome, Nazareth and Bethlehem.
Second, I taught a couple of unusual vocabulary items which they needed if they were to understand the passage. We use the New International Reader’s Version (NIRV) of the Bible because the language tends to be less specialised than some other versions. Nevertheless, the NIRV translators have left the relatively uncommon word ‘manger’ in this tale. (The other tricky word was ‘circumcised’.)
“Don’t worry about memorising the word ‘manger’,” I told them. “It’s enough to just recognise it. It’s not common in modern English except for when we tell the Christmas story. It’s old English, coming from a French word meaning ‘to eat’ – ‘manger’. In other settings, we would call that thing a ‘feeding trough’.”
We then worked through the wondrous story, one paragraph at a time. The climax of the lesson was a carol, ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night.’
The question
“Why did Mary put the newborn baby in a manger?” A thoughtful woman in the group who is not over-familiar with the Christmas story asked this question.
It just so happened that I have recently re-read a chapter on the culture and history of that area, how mangers featured in homes and how that related to the Christmas story. If you’re interested in reading more about this, check out the book ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’ by Kenneth Bailey, published by Intervarsity Press.
So, in response to this quite reasonable question, I explained that a manger was just the right size for a baby. It was like a cot. The straw would almost certainly have been clean and comfortable. The new mother and those with her were making the best of what was at hand.
The lady looked puzzled. She continued, “But Mary must have been lying somewhere. Why would she need a special bed for the baby? Even if she was lying on the floor, wouldn’t it have been better for the baby to lie on her or next to her?”
She has a point. A manger is an odd choice for a baby’s bed. And what about mother-child bonding?
The significance of the manger
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that this lady was onto something. The manger is a significant element of the Christmas story. Kenneth Bailey, in the book recommended above, thinks so too.
Three times, the author Luke emphasised the manger in the section we studied a few days ago. In Luke 2:7, we read that Mary laid him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. In Luke 2:12 an angel, in blazing light, gave terrified shepherds a sign to attest to the incredible incarnation. The sign was this: the newborn Saviour, Messiah and Lord would be found wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. In Luke 2:16, the shepherds did indeed find the baby lying in a manger. After witnessing this miracle, they praised God and spread the word about what they had been told and what they had indeed seen … the Lord Jesus lying in a manger (Luke 2:17,19).
Humility
I tried again to answer this insightful lady’s question about the significance of baby Jesus lying in a manger in a satisfactory manner.
“The manger shows us how humble Jesus was. He went from powerfully sitting on a throne to helplessing lying in a feeding trough for animals. After all, Mary couldn’t hold him all the time, right? It would have been safer for the baby to be off the floor when Mary was up and about, don’t you think?”
This response isn’t as random as it might seem. Just a few weeks ago, we studied a passage from Philippians 2 in which Jesus is portrayed as having come from a position of equality with God to taking on the form of a servant. In fact, Jesus took on the form of not just a servant, but also a homeless waif whose parents had been forced from the security of ‘home’ by an edict of an oppressive government. In fact, the situation would get worse before it would get better. The horror of Herod’s jealousy was not covered in Luke’s tale.
The more I ponder the image of the baby Jesus lying in a manger, the more I appreciate the tremendous wonder of the incarnation.
Count the cost
These thoughts made me think me of something else related to humility, and that is the cost involved in following Jesus. I didn’t go there in our class last week, though. The elements of the Christmas story as recorded in the first part of Luke 2 would be enough for one day.
Philippians 2 contains that early church hymn which our group studied a few weeks back. But there is more.
A sobering injunction directly follows the hymn of Philippians 2:6-11. The writer clearly links the two with the word ‘Therefore’.
“Therefore, …. continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” .
Philippians 2:12a, 12c-13
Jesus counted the cost when he descended from a throne to a manger. The cross was yet to come.
Perhaps the manger of his infancy also hinted at the homelessness that would be his lot in adulthood. Decades later, Jesus would explain to someone who asked to follow him, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58).
I find this passage sobering because I thoroughly enjoy having a place to call ‘home’. Just the same, as a follower of Jesus, I have to be ready to relinquish it, as I have done before. It was easier when I was younger, though.
It is my hope and prayer that these ladies will, in time, choose to follow Jesus. There are some good people in their lives, of whom I am just one. We are quick to hold out the good news of Jesus’ incarnation, but the reality is that there will be costs in following him as well. May the God who took on frail human form strengthen them to persevere when that time comes.
A feast
A manger is a feeding trough. Animals gladly come to feeding troughs after farmers have been because they are usually filled with good food.
That the baby Jesus was laid in a manger was no coincidence.
The image of a baby in a manger has become a well-accepted image of Christmas. Many people have beautifully carved nativity sets which they set out at this time of year. The animals look adoringly at the newborn baby … at least, that is what we like to imagine they are admiring. Could it also be the fresh hay?
The picture of a ‘feast’ and a ‘table’ laden with good food is woven throughout Scripture. “You have laid a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23:5) is one such picture with which we are familiar. The theme continues through most Christian denominations even today as we ‘come to the Lord’s table’ to celebrate communion. Consider these words of Jesus, spoken near the end of his life:
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’
Matthew 26:26-29
Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my father’s kingdom.’
Is it coincidental that the newborn Messiah should be laid in a ‘manger’ – a feeding trough? Jesus himself was the feast that God had prepared for his people. In a very literal way, the one who would call himself ‘The Bread of Life’ (John 6) spent his first hours in a manger, a feeding trough.
A Christmas greeting for 2020
At the end of 2020, I hesitate to greet people with the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’. It’s been a shocking year for many of us. ‘Making merry’ is actively discouraged in many parts of the world this year. No, ‘Merry’ is not the right greeting for Christmas 2020.
Yet Christmas remains special. On that first Christmas, God incarnate physically entered our broken, hurting, contaminated world.
And so, as we, too, contemplate the wonder of Christmas, I shall finish this blog post with this Christmas wish for each of us – you, me, and the many (including the ladies in my neighbourhood) who have come to the Christmas story with fresh eyes this month.
“May the wonder of Christmas be ours.”
For our Saviour was laid in a manger.