GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 2:6-7
6 And so it was that while they were there, the time came for the baby to be delivered. 7 And she gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
First, let’s look at some details from the birth of Jesus (swaddling clothes, the inn, the manger, and the stable), and then the purpose of the birth of Jesus.
The term “wrapped in swaddling clothes” employs a word used in the Bible only by Luke but common to Greek medical writers. It is sparganóō (σπαργανόω). The root of this word if σπαράσσω (sparássō) “to tear up; convulse; writhe.” This is a fairly common Greek word for the kind of convulsions associated with the actions of demons (Daniel 8:7; Mark 1:26; 9:26; Luke 9:39). From this, we come to energetically tearing up old clothing to make bandages or, in this case, larger strips for swaddling. Luke, probably a married man and a father (1 Cor. 9:5), would have known the word both from the standpoint of making bandages and from taking care of newborn babies.
Some preachers who are not fathers have the notion that “swaddling clothes (or cloths)” and diapers are the same thing. This is not at all the case. To swaddle a child is quite specifically to wrap a newborn in a blanket so that their arms and legs are immobilized so that the baby is content and reminded of the womb (and to keep the baby from scratching itself). Now that the newborn is swaddled and cozy, let’s look at the surroundings.
The inn of Bethlehem in the first century is otherwise unknown to us, but it would have been a (perhaps) larger-than-usual house, with rooms to rent. In large cities, the need for cheap housing becomes more and more immediate, perhaps never so much as in Victorian London. In the mid-19th Century, London became the first city in the world to exceed a million residents. This caused a housing emergency that led to all sorts of creative endeavors. One of these was the “penny hang,” in which men (usually drunken sailors) would pay a penny to enter a room with four to six ropes strung taught like chest-high clotheslines. The men would drape their arms over the line (as in all Napoleonic-era ships, eighteen inches of sleeping space per man) to hang there, asleep, until morning. Mary and Joseph, thankfully, had no such choices. The inn was full, and so they moved on.
There is a huge cave in Bethlehem on the edge of town. Justin Martyr (second century AD) was the first to speculate that this was the location of the town stable, and the birthplace of Christ. The Emperor Constantine erected an octagonal chapel over the site in 325. It was here in a hermit’s cell that St. Jerome lived for 34 years (from 386 to 420 AD) translating the Bible into Latin. After Constantine’s chapel was destroyed, the Emperor Justinian I built a new, larger church in the mid-sixth century (he died in 565). This church still stands to day. However, the location of the manger may have been a more ordinary barn or even a sheep cote similar in many respects to the tiny shed featured in almost all Nativity scenes in Christian homes.
We assume that Mary delivered the baby in a stable became she laid the child in a phatne (ϕάτνῃ), an animal’s feeding trough or manger. This could have been kept outdoors but more likely was under the cover of a rough roof or in a cave large enough to house animals. The existing cave we have mentioned is very large and would have had ample space (imagine your home nativity set with the figurines the same size you have now, but with a cave that would cover your whole kitchen table or dining room table, and with passages and chambers leading down below).
What was the purpose of Jesus’ incarnation and birth? The Church has understood for centuries, even millennia, but recently a frightening trend has begun to dismiss the Bible’s proclamation in favor of elevating man’s role in obtaining merit before God. When the largest Lutheran church body in American was formed in 1988, its members were told: “Jesus was not born to die, but to live for us… The cross is central to our preaching because it shows a depth of God’s love for us… Some preaching describes Jesus’ death as a payment of God’s wrath. This approach stresses guilt as a barrier to our entry into heaven. There is truth here, but this is only one of many ways the Scriptures proclaim the meaning of Jesus for us” (The Lutheran, March 30, 1988). The founders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America were flinging open the doors to every blowing and tossing wind (James 1:6; Jude 12), and sowing the seeds of doubt and unbelief. How man finds meaning in the Bible was becoming more important than listening to the Bible expressing its meaning in clear terms.
Since that time, 1988’s alternative meaning is fast becoming today’s only meaning. Where that church body was once permissive, it has long since become dismissive. It seems as if there is no room at all today in such a church for a Christ who came to redeem souls: “The hope and promise of Christmas is about the salvation of bodies, especially bodies that don’t always feel OK. The babe crying from the manger was a signal to a crying people, to a world dominated by the subjugation of bodies under the boot of the Empire, that God was crying, too, and had not forgotten those beloved bodies… If the incarnation of God in Christ makes anything plain, it’s this: God loves humanity enough to become humanity and is still known through that humanity today as Christ appears in neighbors and strangers. The craziest of second comings, indeed!” (“Immaculate Reconception,” Rev. Tim Brown. Living Lutheran, December 2016, p. 5). There is something theologically wrong, seriously dangerous and damning in each of the four sentences quoted above. However, let’s note especially that this kind of application of the birth of Christ reduces the text of the Bible to trivia, and the teaching that is now proclaimed leads no one to salvation, but only wondering whether they are Christ-like enough or not. This is the path of despair.
The purpose of Jesus’ incarnation and birth is this: “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). He came down to redeem us from our sins, and he accomplished this purpose by giving up his very life. Through him, you have forgiveness and a place with him forever in heaven.
Since all he comes to ransom, by all be he adored,
The infant born in Bethl’em, the Savior and the Lord.
Repeat the hymn again:
“To God on high be glory, and peace on earth to men.”
“A Great and Mighty Wonder” vs.4
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota