Swaddling Clothes and lying in a manger

A Reflection for Christmas Day                                 All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC December 25, 2015                                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Swaddling clothes and lying in a manger

I have a dog  I got from shelter and his name is Yoda and, apparently, or so we think, he may have had an early trauma before we got him involving thunder and lightning, for whenever it looks like it could thunder, he starts hyperventilating.  We try drugs - for him, not for us – as well as this contraption called a “Thunder Vest”, which is an elaborate system of pieces of cloth sewn together that you wrap around his chest so that, the theory being, he will feel safer. It is a variation of that “bands of cloth” that the reading from Luke speaks about, or if you use the King James Version, “swaddling clothes”. 

The theory behind swaddling babies was that this practice would make them feel safe. It used to be a universal practice across early cultures as a way to help shape the baby to grow up straight, and if they were indoor babies, it was to keep them from messing up the rest of the world. Our modern medical science is divided about the practice, but during Jesus’ time, almost all babies were bound with bands of cloth. And Luke wants to use that information twice - a sure sign that he thinks it is important. He also repeats the information about the baby being in a manger. So what is Luke trying to point out?

I think of several  things: 1) the swaddling of babies is almost universal. This baby Jesus is a full human being just like every other human baby. You would be hard-pressed to notice any difference between this person Jesus and any other person of his culture. The exceptions would have been the shepherds or other families who lived outside and who were so poorly paid they would not have had enough cloth to waste on covering up babies. So saying that you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes was a useless bit of information two thousand years ago in Judea; almost all babies in towns were wrapped in bands of cloth. A family temporarily down on its luck might still have some habits that poverty has not forced them out of and might use swaddling clothes until they couldn’t afford it any longer. 2) This is not a “wonder child” who pops out the womb and wrestles snakes or tames lions like other myths; this Jesus has limits. It becomes an enacted symbol of what will happen in the rest of his life; the end will be like the beginning, or as Paul says in his letter to the Philippians “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” The unlimited God empties Godself and knows what it is like to live in a very messy world which the God chooses not to control.

The empting goes further with this baby being laid in a manger. Now this is a piece of helpful information for the shepherds so they might find the baby – look for the animals, the stables, don’t waste your time looking in the houses of the prosperous, don’t waste time looking in mansions and palaces, look in the place where the utterly poor hang out, for it is when we enter our own emptiness that we have a better chance of finding God. How strange that we associate the birth of Christ with having too much to eat and spending money like we were rich. Maybe on Christmas Eve we should go to homeless shelters and spend time with people who are cut off from their families and bring them comfort that had been denied to the Holy Family two millennia ago. The shepherds did that, the first church assembly was this group of smelly outsiders who went out of their way to go to Bethlehem and worship God as their better angels had invited them to do.

It was a manger, a feed trough, in which the poor parents placed the baby Jesus. Maybe the symbol of a place for feeding, the feed trough, can remind us that it is the God dwelling with us that feeds our souls. So many times we go to where people are fed, and Jesus reminds us that whenever we eat the bread of sustenance to get through each day, and drink the wine of celebration, the spirit of new beginnings,  it is in those moments that we can take God into our very selves.

Today we have come in the daylight as the shepherds came after the angels had called them during the night. Today we have come as a new day has come that leaves the past behind. Today we have come to feed on the God that dwells with us. May you today have a Merry Christmas.