Mangers Are Messy Places

I wrote this devotion a number of years ago. The messiness of life changes, but it never goes away. Every year I need this reminder. Mangers are messy, but Jesus comes into messy.  I pray the message of the manger blesses you again this Christmas.

“She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.” (Luke 2:7)

I have a nativity scene that I put out every year for Christmas. Its traditional place is on a shelf at the top of my TV cabinet in our family room. A shelf that usually has family pictures and books on it. A shelf that usually gets cleaned off – and dusted this one time a year! Usually, I pack up all the stuff on that shelf and put the nativity scene up there all by itself – a place of uncluttered prominence!

This year, as I looked at that shelf, I wondered – Why do I do that? Why do I pack up what represents my life – the mess, the clutter – and pretend like it doesn’t exist in order to put up what, to me, represents the welcoming of Jesus Christ into my life?

For just a minute bring to mind your picture of the nativity.

If your picture at all resembles my picture it is probably very neat – the hay is clean and the star is bright and Mary doesn’t ever look like she just had a baby and Joseph looks totally calm and collected. They never look like they had just spent days – maybe weeks traveling to Bethlehem. They never look like they were desperately seeking shelter as the time to give birth approached. It looks calm, tranquil, perfect.

That image tends to reinforce this thought that my life needs to be calm, tranquil and perfect in order to welcome Jesus.

So I pack up everything that represents my life, store it away thinking, if I get everything perfect on the outside, maybe all the mess on the inside will go away too – at least just for this month. For just this month I’ll put all the junk that I carry, all the ugly, all the clutter, all the stress and worries and the things I think I fail at and all that stuff that makes my life messy – I’ll shove all of that in a box – stuff it somewhere deep down inside and make it look like I have it all together. Like I have no issues in my life, no sin in my life, no worries, no doubts.

Just for this month. In January I’ll take it all back out and be real, but for this month – I’m going to put it all away so my life looks neat, and clean.

Because Lord knows my life can’t be a mess when Jesus comes.

If we fall prey to the image that everything must be perfect, that our lives must be perfect, that we can’t be a mess – well – we hinder what God is doing in our lives through Christmas. We put up barriers and start to think we have to get to some level of good or right or together – and if we aren’t there, we pretend we are by making everything look good.

But that is not at all what Christmas is about. Christmas is all about God loving us so much that He comes to us where we are, as we are. Mess and all.

She – Mary – laid him – Jesus – in a manger.

Mangers are messy places.

If we back up just a little in Luke we find that Mary and Joseph are in Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus decided to take a census. And this census required everyone report back to the town from which their lineage came from. Joseph and Mary were from the lineage of the House of David – and David was from Bethlehem.

People were coming from all over the region in order to comply with this census. Bethlehem was being inundated with people and any facilities they might have had were totally overrun.

Mary and Joseph have been traveling for days – maybe weeks. On foot and on the back of a donkey. Dusty. Dirty. Arriving in a place with hundreds, maybe thousands of people, no room, no facilities, no running water, lots of animals, – and we start to get an image that is maybe not quite so pristine. Not quite so clean. Maybe even a little messy.

Add in the actual birth of the baby. That is not a neat and clean process today – let alone 2000 years ago. No masks, no robes, no boiling water, no sanitized tables and instruments. Just a young father and his bride – seeking shelter in the only place they could find; a cave where animals were sheltered. I picture a place that is small, confined, and dark except for what little light a torch might provide.

Not quite so clean. A little stinky. Maybe even a little messy.

And she laid him in a manger – I used to think manger meant a barn or a stable, but a manger is actually the feeding trough. The thing that food was put in for the animals. Not a crib with the latest in designer bedding. But a manger. Most likely a stone structure about 3 feet long, 18 inches wide and 2 feet deep. A place that had probably earlier that day been surrounded by sheep as they ate their feed out of it.

Not quite so clean. Maybe even a little messy.

2000 years ago, Jesus came into messy.   He came into cluttered and busy. He came into life as it was.

Today, He comes into life as it is.

Jesus comes, not because we have it all together, but because we DON’T have it all together. He comes because we need a Savior, and He invites us to bring him all of our messy, cluttered lives.

This year, my nativity is set up on a shelf full of family pictures; those things that represent what is in and on my heart. People I pray for, concerns I have, dreams I have. As I look at it sitting up there I think, this year, I want Jesus to be in my life as it is.

Do you know that God loves you just as you are, where you are – mess and all? If not, please don’t let this season – don’t let this day go by without accepting His invitation and let Jesus come into your messy.

Mary laid him in a manger – and mangers are messy.