Whenever I see flowers and ribbons on a manger scene in church I think to myself, “that’s not the bed the baby Jesus I know slept in!”

 

Mangers in real stables, in contrast to sanitary churches, were “feed boxes” to put in grain for animals to slobber around in, snorting and drooling their saliva, which mixes with the grain dust and cakes thick to the sides, building up to inches thick!

 

No flowers to be seen.

 

I’m sure that Joseph did a stellar job cleaning up the grain bin, but I’m just saying, it would have needed to have been cleaned up!

 

Jesus was born in the city of David, the “Son of David,” as Nathan prophesied would indeed happen. i.e., an heir of King David would be born in the “city of David” and would reign with a kingdom that would have no end.

The little town of Bethlehem we sing about in Christmas carols literally means the “House of Bread” in Hebrew [“Beth” (House); “Lehem” (Bread)].

 

Jesus, the “bread” coming down from heaven to give eternal life to those who would accept it – and referring to himself (on multiple occasions) as the “bread of life” – comes into the world and is immediately placed in a grain bin, a manger, [“Manger” “to eat” in several languages)].

 

As a baby to a man, so is grain to a loaf of baked bread ready to eat!

 

How fitting that Jesus the newborn is placed in the grain bin: it signifies the path that would in the end lead to the culmination of his life’s mission with the institution of the Eucharist [on what we call Holy Thursday] the very evening before his sorrowful passion and agonizing death on a cross which he underwent to open for us the way to heaven.

 

It was during that last meal with his disciples that he instituted the holy Mass and gave us his own body to eat, telling us that it wasn’t optional, but that we needed to have him in us to have life.

 

Jesus was adamant that unless we were to eat his body and drink his blood we would not have life in us! When it says in Scripture that it was too hard of saying for many and they turned away and stop following him, he didn’t say he was speaking metaphorically, he let them go, then asked his own disciples if they we’re going to go as well. Think about that.

So I’m not opposed to prettifying manger scenes set up at the front of churches, but let’s not forget who Jesus said he was and the symbolic significance of him pouring himself upon the world through the Incarnation when humanity was starving for true food, and landing in a grain bin!

 

With Christmas falling on a weekend it was pretty special to be able to participate not only in the regular fourth Sunday of Advent Mass yesterday morning, but Christmas Mass again this morning, where we all celebrated the birth of Jesus and then obeyed his command as we consumed His precious body during the communion celebration!

 

We are to go now, after having been kneeded and molded into a loaf ourselves through the discipline of obedience, having been made ready, proven and tested in the oven and made ready for service to give ourselves to others just as Jesus gave Himself for us.