Wrapped in Cloths

Long strips of cloth, wound round and round a tiny body. A feeding trough lined with straw. Nothing special. And yet heaven itself would point to these two things and say: look, this is the sign.

Bethlehem, at night. Mary has just given birth to her first child, far from home, in a crowded house where there was no space in the guest room. Joseph is beside her. There is no midwife Luke tells us about, no grandmother fussing, no special nursery. Just a young mother, a newborn baby boy, and the things that every mother in that land would have reached for. Luke mentions two of them. And he mentions them twice, because they turn out to matter far more than anyone in that room could know.

First, the cloths. Luke says Mary wrapped him in swaddling clothes. Swaddling was what caring parents did. They took long bands of cloth and wrapped the baby snugly, arms and legs held straight and warm. It kept the baby safe and calm, and it showed the child was loved and looked after. Then, the manger. Mary laid her son in a feeding trough, the box or hollow where the animals' hay was put. It may have been made of stone, or wood, or packed clay. It was the safest, softest place she could find. Swaddling cloths and a manger. That is all.

Now the story moves outside the town, to shepherds watching their flocks on the hills. An angel appears and tells them a Saviour has been born in the city of David, Christ the Lord. And then the angel gives them a way to find him. “And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Think about that. A sign from heaven, and it is not a burning bush or a pillar of fire. It is a baby in strips of cloth, lying where the animals eat.

Lots of babies in Bethlehem would have been swaddled. But how many would be lying in a manger? That was the clue. The shepherds would know him because he was the one in the lowly place. And there is something kind in that sign. Shepherds were not welcome in palaces. They might have felt nervous walking into a grand house. But a manger? Shepherds knew all about mangers. The sign told them: this Saviour is not hidden away from people like you. He is in a place you would feel at home.

Swaddling was a sign of care in the ancient world. The prophet Ezekiel describes an unwanted baby who was not washed, not rubbed with salt, and not swaddled at all, as a picture of total neglect. And in an old Jewish book called the Wisdom of Solomon, the great King Solomon says he too was nursed in swaddling clothes, because no king has any other beginning. Jesus began life the way every child did: small, and needing care.

You'll find the cloths and the manger in Luke chapter two, verses seven and twelve. Ordinary signs of the most extraordinary birth. So here is a question to carry with you. What ordinary things around you this Christmas could remind you that God came close?