Christmas Eve Homely - The Manager

Christmas is a time where a lot of people give and receive gifts. While visiting with a friend this week, she informed me that her mother had placed a ban on candles coming into their home - not because she didn’t like them, but because she had received so many as gifts over the years at Christmas, that they needed to be used before others took their place. Some Christian parents teach their children that we receive gifts because the Wise Man first gave gifts to the Christ Child, and this is true, but above all Christmas celebrates the time when God gave us a gift in Jesus Christ - son of God and son of Man.

Jesus wasn’t born in a hospital, or even the home where many children were born during that time period. He was born in a stable, a cave often located underneath the home where the animals lived. Often this is referred to as humble circumstances - those not befitting him as King and Lord. This humility serves as a reminder to us, even today, that Christ is not compelled to be who we want him to be or to show up the ways that we want him to show up. He comes in his own time and in his own way.

Sometimes, when Christ shows up in our lives, we are lucky enough to be told about it so we notice in a profound way, like the Shepherds who were greeted by the Angel’s singing. The Shepherd’s were so moved, that they risked their very lively hood, leaving their job, to go and see for themselves this child who had come to save them. Perhaps the Shepherds thought that this meant that this child would grow up to lead an army against Rome. Perhaps they thought that he would become the next great ruler. But it is a safe guess that they did not expect that Christ had come to reconcile them to God, saving their very souls.

Christ not only came in humble circumstances, lying in a manger, but had his birth first announced to humble people - shepherds. Those who didn’t own their own land, and often had tense relationships with the neighbors they used land from to feed their sheep. People who were looked down upon by society, often looking and smelling as if they did not have a place themselves to lay their heads, from spending time under the elements caring for their sheep. These humble people, low ranked by their own society, the first to see hear of the birth of the Christ child, were who Jesus identified himself with as well. For Jesus is often referred to as the good shepherd, the one who cares for us, his flock.

Perhaps, like the sheep a shepherd cares after, we do not fully realize all that Christ’s birth means for us or all of the ways that Jesus looks after us as our shepherd. That is why we visit this story anew each year, to be reminded of the gift that we have received in the birth of Jesus Christ. And to remember the gift we received in his sacrificial death on the cross and his Resurrection. For the humble beginnings of his life foretold so much. Jesus, being born in Bethlehem, “The city of Bread” and being placed in a manger, the troughs that animals came to be fed at. We are people who cannot live by bread alone, so we come to Christ to meet our needs that are vital to our very being. When we hunger for hope, faith, and joy - Christ feeds us. When we are starving for love and something to fill our deepest longings, Christ provides. When we ache for forgiveness and reconciliation, Christ invites us to the table. For Christ is the bread of Life that gives us more then we can ever ask for.

The Shepherds had no idea who they were bringing adoration to when they met the Christ child in the manager. They simply knew that they were told great things about him and then sought him out themselves. Friends, who are the people in your life simply waiting to hear about the Christ child so they can be in relationship with him? Who are the people in your life who are in need of meeting the bread of life? Invite them to come. For the manger is for everyone. For it holds the greatest gift of all. Amen.