The First Christmas: Born in a Manger
Luke 2:1-21
Today’s sermon draws heavily on Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes [picture], by Kenneth Bailey, a scholar who spent 40 years living and teaching in the Middle East.
Most of us have heard a Christmas story where Joseph and Mary come to Jerusalem late one night. The inn is full, so the innkeeper sends them to a stable where they then give birth to baby Jesus.
Kenneth Bailey suggests that this is not what actually happened. He offers a different picture.
Hospitality is a big part of Middle Eastern culture. In 2000, Janette and I had the opportunity to visit Egypt, Jordan and Israel. Even for us, when we would come upon some remote villages, we’d be invited in for a cup of tea [picture; 140].
Joseph was returning to his “hometown.” People may or may not have known him personally, but people would have known his family. Joseph was from the line of David and he was returning to the city of David (v. 4). Remember, people were seen as members of their family; “Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Matthan, of the family of David.” People would have been hospitable to a stranger, and of course they would have been hospitable to a local family member, and so it would be almost unthinkable that people would not have been hospitable to someone from the family of David.
In this culture of hospitality, particular care is given to people like pregnant woman. You’d never turn away a pregnant woman who needed a place to stay.
In short, Bailey says there’s no way that Joseph and Mary would have been turned away. They would have been warmly welcomed into a home.
The question is, then, how do we interpret v. 7, “[she] laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.”
First, where is the manager?
We think this manager is a stable or barn, some building separate from the main house. That’s how it’s presented in our usual Christmas story. Bailey points out that the wealthy might have separate quarters for their animals, but most people did not. Most common people brought their animals into their homes, which were just one room. One end of the room was either a few feet lower or blocked off with timbers. The animals stayed in the “stable” section of the room while the rest of the family stayed on the other side. The animals would be safe from thieves at night and help heat the house in the colder months.
The circles represent managers dug out of the floor where larger animals could eat from. Mangers for smaller animals could be made of wood and placed on that lower level.
The manager was part of the 1-room house. The picture is that Jesus was born in a typical commoner’s home and put in a manger where probably some fresh straw was laid.
What about the “no room in the inn”?
Bailey suggests this is a bad translation. There is a Greek word for what we think of as a commercial inn. But that word is not used here. Instead, the word used here is the same word in Luke 22,
10He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters 11and tell the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' 12And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there."
If a home had a second room, it was a guest room. This would sometime be on top (as in Luke 22) but more often on the side, next to the family living area. This was a culture of hospitality.
So the story is that Jesus born in the family living area and was placed in a manger because the guest room was already full.
The point is that they were welcomed into a home of a commoner, a peasant. Because of the census, Bethlehem had a lot of visitors. So Joseph and Mary didn’t have a guest room. They were crowded in with the host family.
When Joseph and Mary go to the Temple, they offer turtledoves or pigeons because presumably, they were too poor to offer a lamb (2:24).
[pictures 94, 89] The picture is that Joseph and Mary were poor, and they had their child with the poor.
The first people to hear about Jesus’ birth were shepherds [pictures]. Shepherds were not a respected group. They were poor, dirty, even considered “unclean” by some Jewish leaders. It’s not a glamorous or exciting job. They were toward the bottom of society. They certainly were also from among the poor and simple.
Angels appeared to these shepherds and said,
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
The shepherds were freaked out by an angel appearing! But they were also asked to visit this Savior.
If you were a “lowly” shepherd and angels appeared to you and told you to go visit the Messiah, how would you feel? This is a very, very important person! This child is the Savior of the World. Shepherds don’t usually meet too many really important people. But then the angel says, you will find this baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. That is, this baby is not in a palace or a mansion. This baby is in a simple peasant’s home, where the animals come in at night, where there’s a manger. It’s a home like their own home.
Then in v. 16 we read that when the shepherds visited, they found the baby “lying in a manger.”
v. 7 that Jesus was laid in a manger because there was no place for them in the “guest room.”
v. 12, the sign given to the shepherds was that they would find this baby in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.
v. 16, when the shepherds visited, they found the baby “lying in a manger.”
There is an emphasis here on what a humble birth this was. Jesus was laid in a feeding trough. This great Messiah was found amongst the poor and laid in a place more commonly used for animals.
Lowly shepherds were amongst his first visitors. He did also have magi from the east to pay him homage. But that was the exception, not the rule.
Jesus was not part of an educated, privileged, upperwardly mobile class. He didn’t go to Penn or Villanova or USP. In fact, he wasn’t in the United States at all. He was not part of the superpower.
Jesus was born from an unmarried teenage mom, in a borrowed peasants home, visited by lowly shepherds. Jesus was a poor. Jesus was laid in a feeding trough.
You see, the Biblical picture of Christmas is not shopping at the mall; it is the huts in Africa where families sleep near their goats [pictures].
The story of Jesus’ birth is a celebration of the poor and weak, the lower class, the developing world.
What does this tell us about Jesus? What kind of God do we have?
1. Jesus is for the poor, sinful and weak.
We have a God who did not come to be served but to serve. He came to wash our feet.
He came to hang around prostitutes and bums and drug dealers and other shady characters.
He played with kids, who didn’t have a lot of power in their society.
He said that he didn’t come for the healthy but the sick.
Last week we heard about how Jesus was born from an unwed teenage girl, who sang in amazement,
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty (Luke 1:52-53)
Jesus came for the poor and weak. The good news is not that we can reach up to God. The good news is that God has reached down to us in the person of Jesus. He became one of us.
Some may feel that they’re not good enough for church. They feel they have to dress up and get their life together. They feel like church is for basically “good” people, but they just aren’t that “type.” Or they have to be “successful” and respectable, but they may not measure up.
We have a God who didn’t ask us to reach up to Him. We can’t. He reached down to us. He came for the weak, the poor, the unrighteous, the sick.
2. Jesus became poor so that we could become rich.
This is the Gospel story:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9
The Gospel is that Jesus left his glorious home in heaven to become a man, a poor man at that. And as a poor man lived a very modest life and was executed on a cross. The rich became poor.
But because He did, we who were broken, sinful, guilty, poor could have a home in heaven. We could become heirs of a priceless inheritance; we could have heaven as our home. Jesus became poor, we became rich. This is the Great Exchange. This is the good news! Christ became poor to offer us riches.