oday is a day of celebration at our house. Today I made jello in anticipation of a new milestone. There have been many milestones in this last month. I have successfully administered over 175 cartons of food into Rene’s tube line. We have crushed over 300 pills and managed to get most of them into the tube lines as well. The crushed pills on the counter, on the floor, on the bottom of the syringe jar will be our secret. So when the Dr. texted to say he thought Rene could graduate to eating orally and our nurse could remove his food line I was elated. Yes, he will still have to drink the nutritional food, yes, his meds will still need to be crushed, but he can start swallowing a new texture. He can eat jello!!! He never really liked jello before but this afternoon he had a gleam in his eye as he savored his first real food in a month! As Cassandra, our sweet visiting nurse, snipped the line and began to pull the plastic tubing I teared up thinking of all that has led up to this moment. Corrie Ten Boom said when a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. This past month we have traveled through our darkest tunnel. The inky blackness of sorrow and despair has been so suffocating at times that I found it hard to breath…but then my engineer, my Heavenly Father reminded me that peace is not in the absence is trouble but in the presence of Christ. I can go through this tunnel with the One who goes before me and I can be joyful not because the sun rises, but because the Son rose!
And with that hope we look at this season of Christmas and reflect on what is truly important. One day this tunnel will be obliterated in the brilliance of our forever home and it all began In the manger. Jesus was laid in a manger. This was God’s plan. Mangers are animal feeding troughs but in ancient Israel they were made of stone.
This is not what we find depicted in our store bought nativity sets, but the stone trough in Bible times was great for protection. That’s why those who were experts in this matter, the priests, would put their newborn lambs in this stone trough. It was used for protection.
But not just any lamb was put in this stone manger, this stone trough was used for the unblemished perfect lambs that were used in the sacrifice for sins. And Bethlehem, where Jesus was born was known for their unblemished lambs used for the sacrifice. These lambs had to be perfect so they would wrap them tightly in cloth and lie them in the manger to keep them safe.
I believe this is why the only time mangers are mentioned in Jesus' birth story is when it’s being told to the shepherds. In Luke 2 it says "This shall be a sign unto you, ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” The shepherds would have understood this powerful parallel! They knew what the cloth and the manger meant! This baby would be THE PERFECT LAMB OF GOD! The Messiah who would sacrifice His life for the sins of the whole world. He wasn't just a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger, He was GOD: perfect, sinless and Holy, humbling Himself to become the perfect sacrifice that would redeem us from sin. That would give us eternal life. That would go with us through every dark tunnel and emerge on the other side victorious. And so as we savor our jello today we will also savor the message of the manger, knowing that in Him, we have everything we need. Peter 1:3,4
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.