Many preachers romanticize the birth of Jesus Christ beyond reality. They erect and present nativity scenes which have a way of making the birth of Jesus Christ more fairy tale than fairly told. What Jesus Christ, as God manifest in the flesh, endured at Bethlehem’s manger was to enter a world of harsh realities—a common, smelly and dusty barn! Not a gilded palace but there in the midst of an inhumane humanity He navigated into our world by being born into a place meant for cattle—beasts meant to serve, not rule, mankind. The majesty of His birth was in the midst of the mundane…Through His own divine plan, the God of all creation entered our world on the floor of a barn…
The manger was never meant to be viewed as simply a part of a “nativity set.” It was a real place, a damp, dirty, dingy, feeding trough. The manger is a living expression, in the image of the manger we find an answer to what it meant for Him Who is God to have truly humbled Himself ….. and became our Great High Priest that can be touched by the feelings of our infirmities.
No one—no one but God—would have made such an entry from the glories of heaven to enter into our sin sick and cursed world—by way of a manger! As the Supreme Sacrifice for all mankind! The Lamb of God… via a lamb’s stable!
Also his exit was an inhuman event of crucifixion. Yet this King who came in such an inauspicious manner was the King of kings–God manifest in flesh!
— jlg —