The Lamb in the stone manger

Pastor Juliet opens with a surprising picture. The manger we imagine in wood was, in ancient Israel, most likely made of stone, and its primary role was protection. Priests from the temple would take newborn, unblemished lambs set apart for sacrifice, wrap them tightly in cloth, and lay them in such a manger to keep them from injury until the time of sacrifice. So when the angels told the shepherds in Luke 2:12 that they would find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, the shepherds knew exactly what to look for: the Lamb of God, slain once but for all.

The Word became flesh

Reading John 1:1–5 and 14–18, Pastor Juliet explains that the Jesus who sits at the Father's side went to the greatest lengths to make that Father known to us. That is the miracle of Christmas: Emmanuel, God with us. Humanity was created to live in Eden in unity with God, but a wrong choice led down a fatal path. God in his gracious love refused to give up on us, and so the Word had to become flesh to give us the chance to choose again. Her question for the night is simple: are you marked by Christmas? Those who are can experience true love, endure deep suffering well, and hold on to infallible hope.

1. We can experience true love

The Greek word for flesh is as crude as meat, and the word for dwelling means to pitch a tent or build a tabernacle. God built his tabernacle among us in the person of Jesus. Because the holy cannot intertwine with the unholy, Jesus became the filter through which we can see God, much like a filter that lets us look at the sun. Pastor Juliet points to the carol line "veiled in flesh the Godhead see" and describes how one encounter with his glory marks you so that you know what it means to be truly loved. Since we love because he first loved us, the spiritual disciplines Elan will practice in the new year's season of prayer and fasting are simply the effort it takes to stay in love.

2. We can endure deep suffering

Hebrews 2:18 says that because Jesus has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are tested. Pastor Juliet shares her own story: raised in England with five siblings by her mother while her father lived in Nigeria, she was 22 when he finally came to visit after a decade apart. Months later a routine check-up ended with him in intensive care, and he died three days later. She lost not only her father but her sense of who she was, and no consolation reached her until a trusted friend shared her own trauma. "I saw her scar," she says, and because the scar looked like hers, the friend's words sank deeper. In the same way Jesus took on poverty, heartache, betrayal, grief, anxiety, and isolation so he could come close, show us his scars, and lead us through what we face.

3. We can hold on to infallible hope

There are idealists, who live as though things ought to be, and realists, who camp in the world as it is, but Christians are never fully either. Adam lived in the ideal of Eden and was cast out into the real world, with cherubim and a flaming sword, a symbol of justice, guarding the way back to the tree of life. No one can pass through the sword of justice and live, so Jesus paid that highest price for anyone willing to believe. By his work on the cross he punched a hole in the slab between Eden and our dark reality, which is why miracles are possible today, a taste of Eden in the now and not yet. One day that whole wall will come crashing down, and that is our infallible hope.

Has the Word become flesh in you?

Pastor Juliet closes by asking whether the reality of Jesus' birth has become the reality from which we live. The Lamb of God in the stone manger reset reality for all time, and her prayer is that he would reset ours to carry love, endurance, and hope in a way nothing else can, as we wait for the ideal world to become our real world.