Word of Salvation – Vol. 13 No.48 – November 1967

 

She Laid Him In A Manger

 

Sermon by Rev. R. O. Zorn on Luke 2:6-7

Scripture Reading: Luke 2:1-20

Psalter Hymnal: 348; 346; 351; 350

 

Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ:

Even the children present here know what this day means.  For today, we celebrate the birthday of the Lord Jesus.  Sometimes the real meaning of Christmas almost becomes lost in the rush of activity, Christmas shopping, and preparation for this day.  Sometimes boys and girls, too, almost forget about the real meaning of Christmas.  It’s so easy to be thinking about little else than the presents they hope to get – and what not.

But the fact that we’re in church today should make it clear that we really know what Christmas means.  For we’re here to celebrate the Lord Jesus’ birth by worshipping Him.

I wonder, can we all go back in spirit to the very first Christmas, and stand beside the manger where the baby Jesus was laid by His mother Mary?

I know that the children won’t have much trouble doing this because they have such good imaginations.  But grown-ups too should be able to see the cattle-shed, imagine the manger, and see with the eye of faith God’s Son lying as a little baby in the manger where the cattle ordinarily ate their food.

Our text says: “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 him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Yes, Mary laid the Lord of Glory as a baby in a manger!

Let us see the baby Jesus there with the eye of faith, and notice:
First, the lowliness of His birth;
Second, the reason for His birth; and
Third, the effect of His birth.

I.   THE LOWLINESS OF HIS BIRTH.

How unusually humble the circumstances of Jesus’ birth were.  For whoever heard of being born in a stable?  Even the children know that when Mummy has a baby, she usually goes to the hospital.  That’s because she and the baby will get the best of care there.  For we want to be sure that the baby arrives safely, and that Mummy will be looked after properly.  Of course that means that she has to go away for a few days, and we’ll miss her in the meantime.  But we don’t really mind, if it means that she will be coming back with a new baby brother or sister!

They didn’t have hospitals in Jesus’ day long ago.  But they did have doctors and nurses.  In fact, God used a doctor, Doctor Luke, to write our text within the framework of the Christmas story which we heard earlier in the reading of the Scripture lesson.  So, surely, God would see to it, wouldn’t He, that His Son, in coming into the world would receive the best of care?

In fact, would the best even be good enough for God’s Son?  Jesus in coming to earth would have to leave a palace in heaven where thousands of angels were at His command.  Would King Herod’s palace in Jerusalem, or the Emperor Caesar’s in Rome, be good enough for Him?

But when Jesus came to earth, He wasn’t born in a palace, or among rich people as we might have expected.  No, Joseph, His foster father was an ordinary carpenter who worked for a living in his home town of Nazareth.  And he, together with his wife Mary, the mother of Jesus, weren’t even home when Jesus was born.

They had made a long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that they might be registered to pay taxes demanded by Rome, which was the foreign government over them at this time.

And then, because the town was crowded out by other people who were doing the same thing, Joseph and Mary had been forced to go to a stable for the night, because that was the only place where they could find room to sleep.

Couldn’t God, who is all-powerful, have kept this from happening, we might wonder?  Yes – but God made all this happen just this way!  He made Caesar issue that decree of taxation so that Joseph and Mary would have to go to Bethlehem.  With all the difficulties this caused them, Joseph and Mary might have been tempted to wonder about God’s care of them.  Just as you and I may do the same sometimes when we’re in difficulties.  But let’s understand from this that God controls everything, and believe it, even when it takes a lot of faith to do so.

God even had a purpose in His Son’s being born in a stable.  Can you guess why?  Yes, it was so that no one, no matter how poor or lowly he might find himself in life, might feel that Jesus was too good for him.  Jesus came right down to the depths where we were, and even lower, that He might lift us up in salvation to be where He is, to be children of God whose home is heaven in fellowship with Jesus!

We have been speaking about Jesus ‘humble birth.  We must also see the humble position that was Jesus’ when He came to earth.

When Jesus was born, no one would have expected that He was a king.  We have already mentioned some kings that were ruling at this time.  There was wicked King Herod who was ruling in Jerusalem.  He would later try to kill Jesus by having all the baby boys, two years old and under, who had been born in Bethlehem, killed.  In this way he hoped to kill Jesus too.  But God warned Joseph about this beforehand, and Joseph took Mary and the baby Jesus to Egypt where they were safe until wicked Herod died,

But besides King Herod on the throne in Jerusalem, there was also Cyrenius who was the governor of the province of Syria, and Augustus Caesar, the imperial emperor of mighty Rome!  These rulers had never heard of Jesus, nor were they even interested in Him.  Did it matter that kings hadn’t heard of Jesus when He was born?  Well, as a matter of fact, many of these kings didn’t even know the true God let alone His Son.  And that’s one of the reasons why God sent His Son into the world that He might teach the people of the world to know the true God, and love and serve Him.  But first a lot would have to happen before this could become a reality.

But in the meantime we should not fail to see that Jesus, already when He came to earth, was a king even though He was born in such humble and lowly circumstances.  We could say that He was a king in disguise.  Only people who loved the Lord God, believed the truth of His Word together with the prophecies of Jesus’ coming, and were patiently waiting for Him to come in the fullness of God’s appointed time, really knew who the Lord Jesus was when He came.

Joseph and Mary knew.  So did the shepherds who heard the angels sing on the night of Jesus’ birth.  And of course the Wise Men also knew.  That’s why they came from afar a bit later, and brought Him precious gifts which were indeed fit for a king, while at the same time they worshipped Him!

Can we see what God is pointing out to us in this?  It wouldn’t be hard to believe that Jesus was a king if He had been born in a palace.  But what good would just believing that Jesus was a king do us?  After all, the earth has had many kings before and after Jesus’ time.

But Jesus was not only a king.  He came also to be a Saviour.  And in order to be a Saviour it was necessary for Him to seek and find that which was lost – to become one with His people that He might lift them from the depths of sin and into a right relationship with God.  He could do this only if He humbled Himself and became obedient to His Father’s will – even unto death for our sakes.  Shouldn’t this help us to see who He really was?  And make us want to love Him all the more as our Saviour?

II.  THE REASON FOR HIS BIRTH.

We should say a bit more about Jesus ‘being born to be a Saviour.  For this, after all, brings us to the heart of the matter; the real reason why He was born at Christmas time.  In order to appreciate what His coming to save the lost means, we must see in just what way we were lost.

You have all probably seen pictures of the lost sheep.  Remember how the artist has painted it as caught in a thicket on the mountain-side right next to a deep ravine!  Nearby soars a huge bird of prey, just about ready to seize the helpless sheep.  But someone else is also near.  It is the good shepherd who has been out looking for this straying, lost sheep.

“Out on the mountain he heard its cry,
Sick and helpless, and ready to die,
Sick and helpless, and ready to die.”

But now he has found it, and just in time too.  Of course he will take it into his arms and bring it back safely to the fold,

We’re like that lost sheep.  Helpless, caught in the clutches of sin, about to be slain by the evil one who is always ready to make a prey of those who are lost.  But Jesus as the Good Shepherd came into the world to seek and to find us and to rescue us from the evil one.  And that’s what Christmas is all about.

Let’s change the figure by using a biblical illustration.  Long ago, people who were captured in battle became the slaves of their conquerors.  They could never be free again.  All their lives they would be in bondage to those who might treat them very cruelly.  And they would die in that miserable condition.  Unless perhaps someone might come and defeat their captors, and then set them free!

Well, Jesus came to set us free.  By nature we’re the slaves of sin and the devil.  You realize this because it’s so hard to be good.  It’s much easier to be bad – to lie and to steal and to cheat: to be just like the devil.  But Jesus came into the world to overcome the devil and to pay for our sins by dying upon the cross for us.  Jesus’ coming into the world meant the beginning of the end for the devil and the kingdom of darkness.  For Jesus came to set us free to be the people of His Kingdom of righteousness and love and truth.

And that means that Jesus, in saving His people, makes them the children of God.  If I were to ask you boys and girls, “Who is your mother and father?” the answer would be easy, for chances are that Mum and Dad are right in the pew with you.  It’s a wonderful privilege to have a mother and father, to belong to a family, to have your needs supplied, to have someone who loves and cares for you.

What would it be like not to have a father and mother?  To have no home, no one to care for you and love you, to be lonely and hungry and miserable?  There are lots of boys and girls like that in the world today.  And many have never heard the Christmas story, and many do not know the meaning of Christmas at all.

How saddening, isn’t it?  How thankful we should be for our blessings.  What a privilege to know what Christmas is all about.

And if God is our Father in Christ, how wonderful this is!  For if God hadn’t sent His Son Jesus into the world, we wouldn’t even know God, let alone have Him as our heavenly Father.  We would still be worshipping idols of wood and stone as the heathen do who have not yet heard the Gospel.

There would be no churches, no Christmas, and no heaven when we die.  We would be like people to whom we send missionaries – people who don’t know God, whose lives are ruled by fear, who when they die are lost forever!

But Jesus’ coming has changed all that for those who know Him.  If we love Jesus, God loves us and makes us His children.  That’s what the angels were singing about on the night that Jesus was born.  For peace and good-will belong only to the people of God.  And the people of God are all those who love the Lord Jesus as their personal Saviour.

III.  THE EFFECT OF HIS BIRTH.

Let us, then, consider the effect of Jesus’ birth.  Because Jesus was born at Christmas time, the light and love of God have come into the world.  We all know what the sun does when it shines.  It chases the darkness and cold away.  Because the sun shines, it is light and warm.  And because the sun shines, this world is a place in which we can live.

So God’s Son came into the world to be its light – the light to chase away the darkness of sin, and the light to warm our hearts with God’s love.  When Jesus comes into your heart, He changes it so that you no longer like to sin.  And when He comes into your heart, He makes the love of God real to you.

We all know what it means to love.  We love people who are good to us, especially at Christmas when they give us nice presents.  At Christmas God gave us the best Gift possible when He gave us His Son.  It should be easy, then, to love God, shouldn’t it?  And to give Him something in return, too – our hearts and lives.

Is there room in our hearts for Jesus?

The world was almost too crowded to give Jesus a place on that first Christmas.  There was no room at the inn, we read.  It almost seems that the animals in the stable gave God’s Son a better welcome than most people!  What a pity and tragedy that the world was so indifferent to the coming of God’s own Son.  For these indifferent people there was no angel message of good news.  There was no angel choir, no joy and wonder at seeing the Christ child, no peace with God and assurance of sins forgiven.  They missed Christmas completely.  And to miss Christmas is to miss all!

But Jesus came.  And those who were ready – like Joseph and Mary, and the shepherds – received the true blessing of Christmas which is to know the love of God as it is revealed in Christ His Son.

God forbid that our hearts should be too crowded to give Jesus His proper place in them this Christmas.  Still, it’s so easy to have them all filled up with things like interest in toys, gifts, Christmas dinner, and visits with friends and family.  In the meantime, Christmas comes and goes.  And afterwards we find that we’re the same as we were before.  But then, in that case, we’re really no better off than the people of the world without a true Christmas.

Jesus came at Christmas to make you His child forever.  He wants a place prepared for Him – not in a manger – but in your heart.

The Apostle John writes, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1John 4:10).

May our response to that Divine love be:
“O come to my heart, Lord Jesus;
there is room in my heart for Thee!”

AMEN.