The Mystery of the Manger

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Pastor George Garrison continues his occasional series, "Thursday Thoughts," on topics prompted by the American struggle with COVID-19, racial inequality, and a presidential election in a deeply divided nation. This Thursday Thought happened to coincide with Christmas Eve.

Since I have had some fun in recent sermons with seeing the Christmas season through the eyes of children, bear with me as I share one more anecdote. 

One week a Sunday school teacher had just finished telling her class the Christmas story.  After telling the story the teacher asked, “Who do you think the most important woman in the Bible is?” A little boy raised his hand and said, “Eve.” The teacher asked him why he thought Eve was the most important woman. The little boy replied, “Well, they name two days of the year after Eve. You know, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.”

No, we don’t have a day of the year named after Mary, but there is no doubting her importance. It can be said of her that she was pronounced blessed by angels and humans alike, and of her it can also be said that no one in history underwent what she experienced, both a supernatural pregnancy and the birth of God in human flesh!

To think that God would become a human being, and to contemplate further that He would become a helpless baby, is much more than our minds can fathom. I’m reminded of the words of a song from singer/songwriter Michael Card called To the Mystery: “No fiction as fantastic and wild, a mother made by her own child, the hopeless babe who cried, was God Incarnate and man deified. Oh, that is the mystery! More than you can see. Give up all your pondering; and fall down on your knees.”

Card has said he was inspired by the words of Martin Luther when he wrote that song: “The Incarnation is not to be analyzed, but adored.” So true. And while our hearts are warmed by all the humble and almost quaint ways we can picture the birth of the Christ child, we must push our minds to adore what we cannot fully picture in our minds, the eternal, infinite God stepping into time in human flesh.

This past year has been one of unsettling mystery for the entire world. A strange, unknown virus was beyond our ability to foresee it’s coming, its dangerous wake, or the best way to navigate it. There is still so much about it that remains a mystery. How long will its effects last? Will the vaccine be fully effective? What are the further implications for our lives at home, or at work, or at school? In many ways, our world has been thrown by the mystery of this virus.

But as followers in Christ, we are poised to embrace mystery in ways the world cannot, because mystery is a consistent part of our lives and our core beliefs. As believers we embrace the great mystery of the Incarnation every day. What we celebrate this time of year only reinforces the great mystery we ponder and worship consistently and constantly: He is Immanuel, God with us!

Eventually, there will come a day when we no longer have to cope with the mystery of the virus. Something so powerful and life-altering will be eradicated, never again to impact our world as we have seen and perhaps will still see. But the mystery of the Incarnation will never cease to hold us in its grip. We can truly be thankful for that, especially this Christmas season. May we never grow comfortable with the mystery of the manger.

Pastor George