What the Manger meant to…

God the Father

 

1^st Sunday in Advent, November 30, 2008

Happy New Year!  If you were here last week you may remember we talked about how last Sunday was Christ the King Sunday, and so it was the last Sunday of the Church year.  This Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent, which is the start of the New Year in the church, which means… Happy New Year! 

To start off our new church year, we’re starting a new series as we head into Christmas.  The series is called, “What the manger meant to…”  The reason for this look at the manger is because we all like to think about the cute little baby laying on the bed of straw while the cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes, and Silent night, Holy night, all is calm and all is bright.

These are fine and good thoughts and feelings to have regarding the manger, regarding the birth of Jesus, but did you ever think about what the birth of Jesus meant beyond the usual stuff we think about?  For instance today, we’re asking the question, “What did the manger mean to God the Father?” 

To begin to answer that question, we are turning to the book of John this morning, and looking at the opening verses in chapter 1.  I invite you to open your Bibles with me to the Gospel of John.

John in the fourth book in the New Testament, so the order goes Matthew – the former tax collector also known as Levi; Mark – the runaway who came back to Christ; Luke – the ‘investigative reporter’ who interviewed many, many people to find out all about Jesus; and then John – the youngest disciple, and the only one who wasn’t put to death for being a Christian.

What did the manger mean to God the Father?  Let’s read what the Holy Spirit tells us here in John 1:1-3 and then verse 14:  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made… The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

First, we need to flush out a little bit of the Greek here.  The word, “Word” is the Greek word, ‘logos’ and it means the mind, the intellect, the heart, the emotions.  So let’s go back and read this again:

In the beginning was the mind, the intelligence, the heart, the emotions {of God}, and the mind, the intelligence, the heart, the emotions was with God, and the mind, the intelligence, the heart, the emotions was God.  He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made… The mind, the intelligence, the heart, the emotions {of God} became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The logos – the mind, the intelligence, the heart, the emotions of God, was God, and was with God in the beginning.  In the Greek this literally means that they were face-to-face separate entities, but they had the same substance.

Do you understand?  God’s Word, God’s logos, is God, and is also its own distinct person.  About the only thing I can think of that would come close to this is if you took all the love you had for a person, and somehow that love actually became a person itself.  That new person would be you, because it’s your love that’s taken on flesh and bone, and yet it would also be a person distinct from you – both you and not-you at that same time.

That is what John is saying here.  This logos, God’s mind and heart, took on flesh and blood – still fully God the Father since it’s His mind and heart, and also distinct from God the Father since it is its own person – God the Son.

So, what did the manger mean to God the Father?  For one thing, it meant all the intelligence, all the emotion, all the power, all the glory that God possesses took on human form.  It means “Immanuel” – God is with us.  It means God the Father Himself came to us in a way we could see and touch and hear.  Not a representative of God; not a ‘good man’ who understands, or has a ‘good bead’ on God, but God Himself walking and talking and eating and sleeping right along with us.  The manger means God Himself came to us.

He came to us as one of us.  It means the all powerful God allowed Himself to become a little baby – grown in the womb of a teenage mother, going through the birthing process, having to be cleaned up, having to have all His physical needs taken care of by another.  Michael Card puts it this way in his song, “The Mystery” – No fiction as fantastic or wild: a mother made by her own child!  

The manger also means that God keeps His promises.  In the margins of your Bible you can write Genesis 3:15 –  “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.”  Way back in the beginning, some 4000 years before the Baby cried in the manger, Adam and Eve cried in the Garden of Eden as they heard the pronouncement of judgment upon them and the rest of the world for their sin, and the promise of God that the hold of the evil one would one day be destroyed by the One God would send – Himself!

Here’s the really interesting thing to think about, and something we talked about quite a bit in our Adult Discussion times last year – whenever we read about God, The LORD, or even ‘the angel of The LORD’ appearing to someone in the Old Testament, that is called a ‘Theophany’: a visit of the pre-incarnate Christ.  What does that mean?  The logos – the mind and heart of God that was there in the beginning – took on form before the manger.  Understand the significance of this: God Himself in human form (a.k.a.: Jesus) stood in front of Adam and Eve and said, essentially, “I’m going to come back again at some point in the future and live the life of a human man, and destroy the power of the devil that was just brought into the world.”  To God the Father, the manger means He keeps His promises.

If God keeps His promises, then that means that we can be assured He will keep His promise to come back once again – He promised us He would: Revelation 22:7 – Behold, I am coming soon!” 

The other thing the manger in Bethlehem meant to God the Father is that there would be a cross in Jerusalem.  I came across this painting a number of years ago, and have always found it intriguing. 

 

The picture shows a manger with a shadow of a cross spilling over it.  From the beginning of time, that which was confirmed by God’s own words in the Garden of Eden, was a ‘given’ – there would be a cross.  The manger meant the cross was no longer a distant event, but a present reality.  The manger meant “D-day” had arrived.

The cross and the manger stand precariously close to one another: both mark beginnings of ends. The manger holds the Newborn who existed before time, and the cross holds that same Eternal One, dying.  In the manger the Baby's hands grip the ringlets of a mothers hair, and the same hands clench in pain grasping at air on the cross. The beginning of God’s plan of salvation held in one, and a new beginning held on the other. The mystery of the manger can only be understood when looking at the mystery of the cross. One cannot exist without the other: the manger without the cross is meaningless, and the cross without the manger is folly.

 

The manger meant that God the Father was coming into the world Himself in the form of His Son to take the punishment for our sins.  What was the punishment?  As bad as the beatings, the torture and the nailing of His hands and feet to the cross were, these things are not the full punishment for our sins.  The punishment the baby in the manger took for our sins when He hung on the cross was being forsaken by the Father.  Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabachthani?  My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

To God the Father, the manger meant He was going to forsake His own Son, and let Him literally experience hell – separation from the Father – as the ultimate punishment for sins.

And He did it to His Son for you and me.  He did it to His Son, because He would rather go through, and to, hell for us, than to be in Heaven without us. 

There’s one more thing the manger meant to God the Father.  The manger that held new life, meant there would one day be an empty tomb.  If the cross without the manger is meaningless, the cross without the empty tomb is even more meaningless.  The manger meant that God came to be with us, and the empty tomb means we can go to be with God.

I know we’ve talked about this before, but to re-cap: Jesus’ forsakenness on the cross, and the death He died was proven to be accepted by God the Father because He came back alive again – Jesus came out of the tomb.  Because His sacrifice was accepted, those who believe in Jesus as their only Lord and Savior from their sins can rest on the fact that what Jesus received from the Father, we will receive, too: resurrection from the dead. 

To God the Father the manger meant there would be an empty tomb.  The empty tomb meant to God the Father that you and I would be raised to eternal life, too. 

The manger meant there would be an empty tomb, and the empty tomb means believers are going to Heaven.  We are going to Heaven to meet the logos who took on flesh and blood to save us.

Ultimately, what the manger meant to God the Father boils down to one simple thing: it meant that God so loved the world, so loves you and me, that He sent His only begotten Son – God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made – that whoever believes in Him will never perish – they will never be separated from God the Father like Jesus was on the cross – but will have eternal life. 

What did the manger mean to God the Father?  It meant you and me, in Heaven with Him.

Amen.