“What if Christmas isn’t coming?” 7-year-old Elizabeth asked her mother, as she watched the rain pound upon the window and her mother unpacked another box. In Lizzie’s heart, Christmas meant snow, a fireplace mantel for stockings, a table filled with cousins. None of these things would be present in their new home. “Christmas is coming,” her mother assured her. Christmas always comes.
“It doesn’t feel like Christmas,” Lizzie complained to her father, as they walked to church on Christmas Eve. No need for a coat. The salty smell of the ocean in the air rather than frost. “You will see,” he assured her. Christmas always comes.
Upon the altar in the church stood a Nativity scene: Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels, and a manger. A sturdy, wooden box, rectangular, deep, with cross-shaped legs. Lizzie noticed the manger right away. Here was something recognizable, pretty much the same manger as the one at her church back home. The manger was made from unfinished wood, like the unfinished rooms in their new home. The manger was empty, like her homesick heart.
The gospel was read, and the story retold: an official decree, a necessary journey, and the time arrived for the baby’s birth. The only place available for the baby born away from home was a manger.
A manger is an ordinary object. It is made of the stuff of the earth and meant to be filled with food. There is nothing fancy about a manger. Yet it is essential anywhere animals need to be fed, which means nearly every house in Bethlehem had a manger. As God enters our world God chooses a feedbox. Not a jeweled cradle. Not a special-order crib. A manger. Nothing separates the Word made flesh from us. Anyone who comes to Christmas worrying their house does not measure up for God’s arrival, or their life is too messy for God to enter need only look at the manger.
Sitting between her parents, Lizzie watched as others participated in the gospel story. A teenager played Mary, dressed in blue. Another robbed as Joseph, trailing behind. Tiny angels and bossy shepherds with noisy sheep completed the scene. If the family hadn’t moved, Lizzie would have had her part. This year she watched Jesus be placed in the manger. What an odd place for a baby. Mary laid Jesus here because there was no room. This, too, is how God comes. The world may act as if there is no space for vulnerable love, no welcome of courageous self-giving, but God comes anyway. God’s love makes a way and as it nestles into our world it greets those sitting on the sidelines, worried they are not welcome, feeling far from their true home. If one worries there is not space for them at Christmas, look at the manger, where God makes room.
To us reasonable grownups, Lizzie’s question “What if Christmas isn’t coming?” has an obvious answer: No matter your geography Christmas always comes. But if we peel back the layers of life, the child’s question dwells in each of us: Does love make a difference? Can the Prince of Peace enter our war-torn world? Is God really here?
In the manger we glimpse the enormous gift of God’s unshakeable presence. An ordinary baby and also divine love living alongside us. A baby who draws everyone to the manger, making guests of honor of those who felt there was no room. As we sing the carols, fed at Christ’s table, and lift our candles high, we claim once again God is here, Christ always comes; especially where he is most needed. May our hearts become a manger for him. Amen.