Sermon 12/24/2020 “Swaddled in Love”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at VTS in Alexandria, VA
Text: Luke 2:1-20
Day: Christmas Eve II, during a pandemic
I read a commentary a few weeks ago about our first lesson tonight from Isaiah. The commentary began with this warning, “A preacher ignores the manger at Christmas to his or her peril.” In other words, the commentator was saying, “Read on, but people don’t want to hear the foretelling of the Messiah’s coming; they want to hear about the actual event.”
Tonight, the actual event of our Savior’s birth IS at hand. “For unto us is born THIS DAY in the City of David a savior, Christ the Lord.” So, here we are, in the “stable,” so to speak, because there is no room for us in THIS borrowed home, this GLORIOUS home-away-from home, that is Virginia Theological Seminary. Tonight, we are ecstatic to have been so graciously accommodated in the Refectory, the feeding trough, of this campus. I was so delighted to receive permissions from the Bishop of our diocese and from the Dean of this seminary to use this space that I immediately commissioned Farrell Hartigan to make a backdrop that would place us in the stable, at least visually, on this Holy Night. The stable and its manger is where the action is THIS night.
Did you know that our founding priest was Director of Development here at the seminary in 1964 when he founded our Church of the Resurrection? That makes THIS CAMPUS our “City of David,” our ancestral home. And here we are, back “home” temporarily in the city of our ancestry while our new church building is being finished. And here we are, with the strong recommendation I received to focus this day on the manger and what the manger holds.
You know—because you know this often-told story of Christ Jesus’ birth—that the baby’s mother wrapped him in “swaddling clothes” and laid him in a manger, the animals’ feeding trough. Other translations call “swaddling clothes” other things; other versions of scripture translate “swaddling clothes” in other ways. Our New Revised Standard Version says the baby was wrapped in “bands of cloth.” A few paraphrases suggest Jesus was wrapped in rags, suggesting that the adults in the stable that night were either poor or ill-prepared for the baby’s birth.
Poor the Holy Family might have been. However, Mary and Joseph were NOT ill-prepared to care for the baby. The baby—THAT’s what THIS night is all about. And this BABY, love itself, had was lovingly wrapped in bands of cloth—swaddling cloths.
People in our time and in our culture just don’t know what “swaddling clothes” are. Upon investigating this term closely this week, I now know that there was an ancient custom, still practiced in some places in the Near East today, of wrapping or swaddling a newborn child after anointing their skin with pulverized salt and powdered myrtle leaves. In such cultures, swaddling is a rite, a promise, to God to raise the child to be truthful and faithful, to be honest and free from crookedness. Swaddling is a validation of the child, a promise to care for him, a sign of love for him.
Swaddling immobilized the baby by wrapping it from chin to toes, essentially mummifying the child and making it “straight.” Jesus being swaddled, as were most well-tended children of his time, was a promise to God and to the Christ Child.
This is not the ONLY time in scripture we hear of swaddling an infant. The prophet Ezekiel (16:3-4), for instance, warned people in Jerusalem that they were acting like people foreign to God, like unfaithful people who hadn’t participated in the birth ritual, which included being swaddled in bands of cloth.
“So,” you might be thinking, “Jesus was swaddled at birth. We knew that; what of it?” The swaddling means there was worship in that stable that night, at that manger. Jesus’ parents made a promise to God about the child. And God made a promise to them and, through them, to all humankind—forever.
Swaddling usually made a helpless infant even more helpless. They couldn’t move, only cry. However, Christ Jesus managed to draw people to him, even swaddled as he was. There were the shepherds, who had been told of Christ’s birth by angels, who thus knew they would find the child “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” This child wasn’t nearly as helpless as we expect him to have been.
The shepherds came as the angels instructed and they, too, worshiped there in that stable, at that manger, while Mary and Joseph looked on in wonder. That’s when this seemingly helpless child swaddled everyone present, wrapping them in HIS love, wrapping them in HIS care.
Matthew’s gospel tells of OTHER visitors to the stable, visitors from the East. They, too, worshiped the child, bearing offerings and bowing to the child, as we do tonight. Yes, this stable, at this manger, is a place of worship.
There is one other place in scripture that mentions swaddling. Job 38 uses the term metaphorically to describe how God, in creation, lovingly swaddled the whole earth in bands of love and acceptance and validation of us as children of God.
God’s swaddling the earth during creation occurred while, in heaven, the morning stars and the sons of God shouted for joy. And this is how we are—or strive to be—tonight, radiating the joy of the coming of the Lord: this baby, born in love for each and every one of us throughout time.
This is ALSO how WE are, tonight. Swaddled by God, wrapped in God’s love given to us freely in the form of a child, the one who would grow straight and true in stature and in wisdom and in love so that all the world would know that God loves us beyond measure and protects us beyond compare.
Like the shepherds, let us go to the stable and see this thing that God has brought to pass, and worship there. You will find the child in a manger, swaddled in bands of cloth, wrapped in love and wrapping you in love.
Alleluia! Unto us a child is born,
O come, let us adore him. Alleluia!
