Jan 14, 2021
By Pastor Phil Lawton
So it’s Christmas Eve. Most of you are probably spending time with your families. Perhaps you have family that has come in from out of town and you are trying to find room in your house for them all. Maybe you will go to a Christmas Eve service where you will light candles or even have a live nativity. Whatever you do, I want you to consider one last thing before you wake to open all the presents.
I want to talk about the reason for this whole season in the church calendar. Tonight is the night that we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now some of you might be saying that Jesus was not born in winter (1). I do not want to get into much detail, but just know that it was possible (2) for the shepherds to be in their fields on December 25th.
Let’s look at Luke’s account.
Luke tells us that there was a census. This is the reason that Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Many of you will know this account from the ever famous Charlie Brown’s Christmas (3). (On a side note, if you haven’t read the blog about Linus dropping his security blanket, you should (4.) Now I don’t know about you, but for years when I read this I had the idea of Mary and Joseph going around from inn to inn asking for a room. Of course, there was not one because the city was full. Well, this is probably not what happened. The problem is a problem of translation. Or, as one of my seminary professors used to say, “the translator is a traitor.”
So the word isn’t “inn”?
If you have paid close attention to my previous blogs5, you might have found this blog6. In it the apologetics guy tells us that the word from Luke that we translate “inn” is also the word used for the upper room where the apostles hid after the Crucifixion. The reality is that Mary and Joseph were probably staying with his family. After all, it says that he went to the town where he was from. So really the word should be translated as “guest room.”
You may ask why this matters. Well there are a couple of things. First, I think that we have glorified the idea of a stable. I know personally I do not think of a stable as a lowly thing. But the whole point of the narrative is that Jesus was born in a lowly place. More on this later.
Second, this gives us more a clue as to what life was like. The astute of you might have noticed that we still have the word manger being used. “How can this be?” you may ask. Well, in the first century the animals would have been kept inside. Especially if it was cold outside. (Now you understand the caveat at the beginning about December 25th.)
What Savior really meant.
So the other word that I want to talk about from Luke’s account is the word Savior (ΣωτήρΣωτήρΣωτήρ). This is a word unique to the Gospel of Luke, although we do find it in the writings of Paul. Regardless, savior was a word that was used of both men and gods before the first century. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament we have this word being used of people like Ehud. (Really great story about not letting anyone look down on you because you are different. Read it in Judges 3:12–4:1) It was also used of YHWH. In the secular world it was used of gods like Zeus and Ares. However this all changed with the conquest of Rome.
By the time of Jesus’ birth, this word was reserved only for Caesar. In Roman culture Caesar was a god. There were temples built to him. So for anyone to use this word of anyone but Caesar was tantamount to rebellion. And here in Luke’s account we have the angels loudly declaring that Jesus is ΣωτήρΣωτήρ and the shepherds talk about these things as they walk back to the field.
But what does all this mean?
This is where it gets really good. See, Jesus was born in a house full of Joseph’s family. There would have been aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and grandmas and grandpas. Everyone crammed into one little house. The place is so packed that Mary has to deliver in the basement where the cat pees and the dog sleeps. Sound familiar?
This is the place that Jesus was born. But guess what! This manger, this feed trough, that Jesus was born into becomes a throne. Why? Because He was savior to the world. He came to save us because we could not save ourselves. We tried. We failed. Read the Old Testament.
But Jesus redeems the world.
This is something strange indeed. In the first century, gods did not consort with humanity. Zeus would not dare come down from Mount Olympus and live with us. He would have been contaminated. But that is not all. In Leviticus 13 we find that lepers were to be excluded from the camp. Why? Because they were contagious. This is the example used for sin in the Old Testament. Sin is contagious. Clean things cannot touch unclean things because they will be contaminated. This is the world that Jesus was born into.
But, glory to God, Jesus is more contagious than sin. This is why the manger is a throne. Because, unlike the gods of Greece and Rome, our God touches sin and it vanishes. Israel could not come into the presence of God, not because God could not be in the presence of sin, but because in the presence of God all sin is burned up. Without Jesus, Israel would have come undone as well. This is the miracle of the manger. Jesus comes to make all things new. He transforms a manger into a throne.
Jesus is more contagious than sin.
This is no better illustrated than in Matthew 8. Jesus reaches out and touches a leper. And he is healed! This is the power of God. He comes to set us all free.
Paul tells us that we are all children of God (Romans 8:16). We, who were enemies of God (Romans 5:10), become His sons and daughters. We are now co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).
This is the miracle of the manger. We no longer have to fear. Yes, we are born sinners. Yes, we were enemies of God. But our God made it possible for us to come to him. God in love and grace made a way for us to be in His presence.
We can truly call him Father because the miracle of the incarnation makes the manger a throne and the sinner an heir.
May you live into your identity as a son or daughter.
May you see the world as God sees it: redeemed.
May God remind you that He can make even you an heir.
And may you have a Merry Christmas.
1 https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/biblical-evidence-shows-jesus-christ-wasnt-born-on-dec-25
2 https://ferrelljenkins.blog/2011/12/28/was-jesus-born-in-winter/
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA
4 https://www.crosswalk.com/special-coverage/christmas-and-advent/just-drop-the-blanket-the-moment-you-never-noticed-in-a-charlie-brown-christmas.html
