The Promise of the Manger

While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:6-7)

I was thinking this week about Mary and Jesus. Mary is one of my heroines. When God told her that His plan for her life was bigger than her plan, she said, “Yes“. Nine months later she had a baby boy.

I wonder what it was like for Mary to hold her son in her arms and realise, somehow, that He was Emmanuel? I wonder what it was like for Him, giving up the glory of Heaven, sleeping in a manger?

The carols talk about the silent, starry night and the crib. I imagine the light of an oil lamp flickering around the rough walls of a shadowy stable and across the newborn face of a tiny baby.

I wonder if the light picked out the wood and the nails of the manger? I wonder if God noticed the wood and the nails and saw a picture of the things to come — the wood and the nails of the cross?

Mary surrendered to the plan and purpose of God. So did Jesus. The night before He died He said,

“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”  (Luke 22:42)

Who looks at the Baby in the manger and thinks of the cross?

I do, because there’s a promise in the manger — a promise that the Baby will grow into the Man. And the Man, the Saviour of the World, won the victory over death and sin when died and rose. His love became incarnate when He chose to come to earth. And His love — foreshadowed in a girl called Mary and a stable and the manger — is the sort of love that changes our hearts and the world at Christmas and any other time of year:

 My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.  (1 John 4:7)