In a manger laid

Sermon Notes: Christmas Eve, 2020 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And so begins the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Such a life as would change the world forever. Such a life as would pave the way for lowly sinful man to enter the Kingdom of God. Such a life that God himself would say, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." Such a life as to destroy the power of death forever. In a stable area. Wrapped in strips of cloth. We might assume used strips of cloth. Clean but hardly sterile. In a manger. Why? Because there was no room anyplace else. What a catastrophe. What a tragedy about to happen. That the son of God would come into the world to find no place to lay his head but in a cattle trough. Among my favorite Christmas service stories is that of the little toddler who gave up her favorite doll to serve as Baby Jesus in the manger in church on Christmas Eve, As she came forward with Mom and Dad she spied her doll there in the manger and without a moment's hesitation began to crawl into the manger to be with it. Mom spent the rest of the service pulling the straw out of her daughter's hair. We are so used to the nativity narrative that we cannot imagine it any other way. Jesus, born in a stable and laid in a manger is as much the world's folklore as it is a tenet of our Christian faith. If you asked that random non-believer, one of the Nones, the conditions of Jesus' birth, they might not know or ever heard of Quirinius, or his census, or the lineage of Joseph that drew him out of his hometown Nazareth. But they would know about the manger. Jesus born in a manger is common ground to believer and non-believer alike. But it's only a tragedy if you don't know the rest of the story. For us believers that rustic piece of furniture has tremendously deep meaning. The manger may have been the last choice for Joseph and Mary that night, but the first choice of God. The manger is all God needed to bring his incarnate son into our world. A place to begin. Ground zero for the light of Christ to fill the world. He did not choose a throne to begin that story. He chose a manger. Only a manger could hold the humanity of the Son-of God. There's no pride or ambition or prestige in a manger. Only humility. The God who created the universe ex nihilo, from nothing, needed a manger to begin his great act of salvation. So Mary lay Jesus in a manger. Joseph, the carpenter, probably felt some chagrin that he hadn't provided his own lovingly crafted crib for that event. And maybe he had, leaving it behind in Nazareth when they started their journey to Bethlehem. And we can only wonder whose rough hands cobbled together the manger that held the Son of God. Some anonymous everyman. A farmer? A shepherd? Some idle teenager handy with a whittling knife? We do not know. We do know that God needed a manger made by a man and man provided it. It's our human contribution to this celestial story. And tonight. Just as on the Christmas evening, God is looking for a manger. Not in Bethlehem, but in human hearts willing to receive him. Pope Benedict XVI stated: "God has done everything; he has done the impossible: he was made flesh. His all-powerful love has accomplished something which surpasses all human understanding: the Infinite has become a child, has entered the human family. And yet, this same God cannot enter my heart unless I open the door to him." - Pope Benedict XVI The Son-of-God looks for a heart willing to be a manger, a heart that is small and humble, rough-hewn maybe, but willing to welcome Jesus into its world. That could be your heart. Or maybe it was your heart once. The truth is that God creates every heart to be a manger for his Son. In every heart God instills the raw materials to be a manger for Christ Jesus. Materials such as a spirit that seeks after Him. A promise that He will be at home there. The assurance that our manger heart will become, in God's time, much more, a temple for the glory of God. We are born with these raw materials and we are not truly happy until our God-intended manger is home to God. For Mary and Joseph the fullness of Bethlehem forced them into that stable and its manger. God doesn't change his plans on the fly to accommodate human complications. If it were not just as God intended the angels would have not proclaimed to the shepherds, "And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." Amid all the congestion and confusion of busy city life, God chose this one place of solitude to enact his miraculous incarnation. The shepherds themselves are called out of their nightly routine to visit the manger. Nothing they were doing that night could match what they were called to see. They were called to a place of refuge where every distraction fades, other obligations dismissed, and only pure adoration remains. It's not an easy journey to that place. We pick up a lot of clutter in our lives that needs to be jettisoned in order to worship the One deserving of our adoration. James K Smith in his book You are what you Love, says we all love something dear enough to us that it fills our heart. We worship that something whether it is worthy of our worship or not. Sometimes, we don't realize who or what we worship. But our actions will tell on us. What do we pursue? What causes us grief when we lose it? What occupies our thoughts and desires? What do we hunger and thirst after? These things fill our manger. Just as there was no room in the inn for Mary and Joseph and the baby, so there is no room in the manger of our heart for anyone but Jesus. But if we give him the room he seeks in our hearts, then the Christmas miracle happens again, and again, and again. Our often abused, miss-directed and sometimes wonton heart can become God's chosen home causing the angels to rejoice. May your heart become the Christmas manger tonight.