Jesus came unto his own!

What a glorious manifestation of the faithfulness, grace, and condescension of God. Who is like Jehovah, our God, who dwells on high, who humbles himself to behold the things in heaven and on the earth? God became flesh and dwelt among us. God was made man in the womb of Mary and born of a virgin. Every knee should bow at that unmistakable sign of God’s wonderful grace and the fulfillment of his promise.

But his own received him not!

What a clear manifestation of the darkness, hatred of God, and total corruption that rules in the heart and nature of man. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehends not the light. Whether man does not receive Christ by going on unconcerned and unchanged at his coming, or whether man does not receive Christ by going about actively to oppose him, makes no difference. When Christ comes, man does not receive him. Man will not choose Christ. Man cannot choose Christ. Man cannot will to choose Christ.

Such was the spiritual darkness of Bethlehem.

Bethlehem was the city of David. The illustrious heritage of Bethlehem was that God had called a king after his own heart from that insignificant town in the hill country of Judea. Long ago the prophet Micah had identified the village as the precise city in which the Christ child should be born: “Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (5:2). God—whose goings forth have been from of old, even from everlasting—would come to Bethlehem!

By the mouth of all his prophets, God told Israel of the coming of his Son. “Behold, a virgin shall conceive.” Israel was to look, watch, and pray for the coming of David’s seed. The Lord moved heaven and earth and worked all things for the coming of that day. He moved Caesar Augustus to decree that all the world should be taxed. God motivated Joseph to take his wife to Bethlehem. God wrought powerfully in the womb of the virgin Mary, so that in her womb God became flesh. Now the moment—the fullness of time—was upon the world when God would bring forth his Son, born of a woman and made under the law, to redeem his people from the curse of the law.

Finally, Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, and they knocked on the door of the town’s inn. They entered the inn crowded with people. Joseph spoke with the innkeeper and explained that they were strangers there, that they had come because of the Roman census, and that his wife was very pregnant, indeed, ready to deliver.

But there was no room in the inn!

Appalling scene.

The terribleness of that scene was the total lack of love on the part of the innkeeper, every resident of Bethlehem, and every inhabitant of that inn. Standing before them was a woman, a member of the nation and the church, about to have her first baby, perhaps the first contractions already started, and no one could find a place for her. No one said, “I will give up my room so that she can at least have a place to rest for a while.” No one said, “We need to find this woman a midwife to help deliver the baby.” No one said, “Let’s gather some items for the baby. Who has a crib, who has some diapers, and who has some clothes?”

There was no room for Joseph and Mary in the inn.

That was a total failure of love.

That was the rejection of Christ.

How could the people have known that Christ was in Mary’s womb and that the Christ child was about to be born? Surely, if they had known that the baby was the Christ, they would have received him and found some room in the inn for his mother.

I say no. Christ could have come to them from heaven in a chariot of fire instead of in the dark womb of Mary, and there still would have been no room in the inn.

The proof is what they did to Mary and Joseph. When the innkeeper and inhabitants of the inn could not find any room; when they thought only of themselves and their own comfortable night of sleep on their beds; when no one opened either a wallet, a room, or a home; and when they all jealously guarded their own convenience from the inconvenience of a couple of strangers from Nazareth, everyone showed what was in their hearts. They showed that they had no love in their hearts for their neighbor and especially for their neighbor in need. They showed what was in their minds too. Their minds were full of selfishness as they jealously sought their own things.

If a man says, “I love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he who loves not his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God, whom he has not seen? No, they could not see God in the womb of Mary. But they could see Mary and Joseph, and they did not love them. Where there is no love, there is no faith; and where there is no faith, there is no reception of God and Jesus Christ when they come.

Such was the heart and mind of Bethlehem, and such are the hearts and minds of all men by nature. That is you and me by nature too. We are represented by Bethlehem, the cruel innkeeper, and all the merciless residents of that inn cozily enjoying the crackling fire in the fireplace, eating a hearty meal, sipping wine, and delighting in convivial chatter, while casting uncaring glances from time to time in the direction of the exhausted woman in labor at the counter and the man pleading with the innkeeper for a room—any room, a corner. All hearing and agreeing with the cold response of the innkeeper: “You may stay in the barn.” They all watched unmoved as the needy couple turned away from the counter with pain on their faces. All callously stared as Mary and Joseph walked out the door and trudged across the yard to the stable. The residents could probably hear the sounds of intense labor coming from the barn as a new mother brought forth her firstborn son. None of them lifted so much as a finger to help!

The army of angels, preparing to herald the birth of Christ, could have burned the inn to the ground. That is what Bethlehem deserved. The angels saw that terrible scene as they prepared their ranks for the coming of the Christ. Surely, they saw the appalling effect that sin had on flesh: the Word became flesh, the Word came unto his own, and his own received him not.

What had man become in his sin? An utterly wretched creature, lost in the blackness, hatred, and cruelty of his own God-hating heart. The blackness of his heart evidenced by his cruelty toward his neighbor. Each man looking on his own things and not on the things of others. Each man esteeming himself and his comfort and glory above all else. The revelation of his enmity against God. Man’s heart has no room for Christ. Even if he would have come in a golden chariot from heaven instead of in the womb of a virgin, the outcome would have been the same.

What more evidence was needed to show how absolutely necessary was the coming of Christ, for the Word to be made flesh, to save his own from such darkness?

So Mary brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.

A gracious contrast!

Do you see the gracious, divine contrast with the selfish, unbelieving mind of Bethlehem? It is there for all to learn in those words: she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger. In these words is a different mind at work—a divine mind. There is a gracious and merciful mind. There is a mind full of love for such undeserving, sinful, wretched men. Because man was so sinful, bound in his sin and his blackness, Jesus had to come to free him from that bondage.

Born of a woman, the firstborn of that virgin girl. He was truly man, if his birth from a woman said anything at all about him. He had been conceived in her womb by the power of the Holy Ghost. Jesus was the true offspring of Mary. She carried him for nine months, as any other baby, and she gave birth to him. Joseph served as the midwife.

Laid in a manger! 

Man, in his celebrations of Christmas, inasmuch as he pays any attention to the Christ of Christmas, always tries to clean up and to beautify the manger scene. But the manger scene was dirty. Mangers are feeding troughs of hay covered with animal slobber. All around that manger was the stink of a cattle shed. You can say that Mary as a mother made that manger as clean and as comfortable as she could for her baby, but it was still a rough-hewn trough. The manger was a scene of humiliation, poverty, dirt, and animal muck.

That manger was a testimony against man and his unbelief. Jesus was laid in that manger because there was no room for him in the inn. He was laid in the manger as the mark of his deep humiliation, his abject poverty, and his total rejection by man.

The manger was also the revelation of his glorious mind. In that stable, in that child, in those swaddling clothes, and in that manger was revealed the lovely, gracious, divine mind of the Son of God toward his people, whom he loved from all eternity.

The one who was swaddled had swaddled the whole world in his care since he made the world in the beginning. He was rich beyond all measure, and he was high beyond all praising. He is God. He is the Word of God by whom all things were made and without whom was not anything made that was made. He is the light of the world; the Son of God; God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, being of the same essence with the Father.

He became poor. The sapphire throne he exchanged for a stable floor. He who is and remains true and eternal God became a man, a lowly man, a baby, and was laid in a manger. Deliberately, sovereignly, graciously, as the choice of his mind and the desire of his heart, he came into the world as a man and was laid in a manger. He did not think on his own things.

The fact that there was no room in the inn and that he was laid in the manger is God’s word about Jesus Christ as the bearer of the sins of his people. He was laid in a manger because he bore the poverty, guilt, shame, and misery of the sin of his people that rested upon him as their representative. The poverty and shamefulness of that sign are the poverty and shamefulness of sin, which takes away man’s right to a place in the world and deserves every misery.

Sin is the cause of all man’s misery. By nature we are all guilty of Adam’s sin, so that everyone is conceived and born in sin, a God-hater and a neighbor-hater. Every moment of every day, in all that we do, we increase our debt by our own actual sins. Because of sin, we are liable to every misery, even to condemnation itself. Because of sin, man has no room in his heart for God, does not choose God, opposes God, and would perish in his sin. Because of sin, man is cruel and unmerciful toward his neighbor.

Upon such miserable, helpless, worthless men God had mercy and tender compassion and willed their eternal salvation. Because he had mercy on them, God himself became a man to bear their sins, and as a man he humbled himself to the bitter and shameful death of the cross. Because God laid on him the iniquity of us all, the babe was laid in the manger and there was no room for him in the inn.

The manger was a prophetic sign of how Jesus’ life would end. The wood of the manger would become the wood of the cross. The sign and shame of the manger would become the sign and the curse of the cross. The world and the false church would crowd him out of the world and onto the cross as an outcast, a rebel, and a blasphemer, and he would be forsaken of God in the hellish agonies of the curse of God.

If he were born in a splendid palace and clothed in royal purple, there would have been no gospel in his birth. He was born poor; he took on the form of a servant; he was obedient unto death so that by his poverty his people might be made exceedingly rich. By his grace he makes room for himself in the hearts and lives of his people. He forgives their sins; he opens their hearts, and they receive him. To as many as receive him, to them he gives power to become God’s children. If you receive him, that is not of you. It is of God. He entered your heart and changed your heart from a merciless, cruel, God-hating and neighbor-hating heart to a heart that loves God and the neighbor.

Cause for rejoicing!

Not the superficial, carnal celebrations of the world.

Celebrate, first, by a deep and sincere sorrow over your sin. If there is not that in the Christmas party, there is no celebration of Christmas.

Let us also rejoice by heartfelt thanksgiving and joy in God as the God of our salvation, who in Christ became flesh for us, who was born lowly and suffering for the sake of our sins, who took away our sins on the tree of the cross and earned for us perfect righteousness, worthy of eternal life, and every blessing of salvation. There is no celebration of Christmas without this.

Let us celebrate, too, by putting off that old mind of Bethlehem and putting on the new mind of the Son of God, after whose image we have been recreated. This is the true celebration of the truth that Jesus was laid in the manger.

Do you see that in Mary and Joseph? Do you see their gladness for the salvation that came to them in Mary’s firstborn? Do you see how they abased themselves? Do you see how they were partakers of his reproach? Behold Mary as she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes. Behold his grace evident in her already. She became his mother. He made her such.

We may blame the Bethlehemites as though we would have received Jesus. We might say, “I would have given up my room for Joseph and Mary. I would have invited those strangers from Nazareth into my home, and she could have delivered the baby in my living room. I would have paid for her to go to the local doctor, or I would have at least helped that poor virgin woman.” Another might boast, “I would have bought a house for baby Jesus. I would have stayed up all night with him if he were crying. I would have nursed him myself. I would have changed his diaper.”

He still comes to you.

He comes to you in ministers who preach the word. He comes in saints—even those whom many despise—who speak to you the truth. Whoever receives them receives Jesus.

He comes to you in the form of our little children, God’s heritage, who come into the world helpless and ignorant of God, and we must care for them and teach them. It requires that we give ourselves, that we abase ourselves, that we have the mind of Jesus Christ and not the mind of the Bethlehemites.

He comes to us in the form of the saints in need, in some trouble, in some affliction, or in need of comfort.

To celebrate Christmas, we must abase ourselves.

That as husbands we deny ourselves to please our wives, as Christ emptied himself for his church; yea, even as he is the head of his church and gives himself to his church in love.

That as wives we submit to our husbands as the church submits to Christ.

That as officebearers in the church we be servants of Christ and thus also of all who are Christ’s, not lording it over the heritage of Jesus Christ but ruling in wisdom and in humility and offering ourselves with the mind of Jesus Christ on behalf of the congregation.

Let every member of the body of Jesus Christ seek the advantage and salvation of the other members of the body of Jesus Christ.

Let us rejoice!

Out of joy and thankfulness for our salvation that came to us when Jesus was laid in a manger because there was no room for him in the inn.