Trough Bed

She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. (Luke 2:7)

Interestingly, so much of the Christmas story emanates from the mention of the feeding trough that was Jesus’ bed. There’s no mention of a stable or donkeys or cows, or hay or what the structure was like. In other words, no Biblical descriptions which form the setting and stage for the nativity sets that are found around the world today, all adapted to local ideas of the context in which Jesus was born. (In fact, our family continues to collect as prized possessions various nativities from many countries. The local representations are numerous and varied! One example is a gift-bearer from Guatemala (a wise man?) bringing Jesus a large stalk of bananas.) The Scripture simply says in Luke 2:7, “(after giving birth) she wrapped him snuggly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”

We start piecing things together from the mention of the manger. Just asking: Could it be that this manger (that is, a box that animals ate out of) was out in a field or on the edge of a field? Was it in a cave? Do we know it was in a stable, under a roof? (Doesn’t seem that we do…unless we can specifically tie a manger to always being under a roof, like in a barn.) But with the feeding trough, it does seem like he was perhaps born in a barn? My dad used to say to us kids to “Close the door and don’t let the air conditioner/heat out; you weren’t born in a barn!” That was a definite negative, to be born in a barn. Doesn’t look like here, being born in a barn was much better. There were big negatives at play: giving birth outside in the elements; far from sanitary conditions; emergency care for the birth probably not close at hand.

But it was for sure an identification with the poor, the pilgrim, and in a sense (without reading too much into it), the homeless. And a start in a low place of society. I mean, we don’t have records that Jewish ladies gave birth and laid their babies in mangers as a routine sort of experience. This seems exceptional?

Of course, if the innkeeper who had said “sorry, no room” only knew that the Royal King of All Time was going to be born there that night in his inn, he probably would have opened up a room by kicking out someone or giving his own. But he didn’t. How could he have known? (And would his inn have been a much better place for labor and delivery? I’m just saying. I doubt it was even a Motel 6, with the light left on.)

The trough bed indicates “low estate”, as the old English turns the phrase. He started off identifying as one of us, in the most basic of birth places. It was a birth place traditionally identified as built of wood. Wood—a common fixture on planet earth (and far from the heaven he had known before becoming human).  I write that, representing the traditional view of composition of the manger, aware that there is significant archaeological research and findings that the mangers were often hewn of stone.

P.S. on wood: his eventual place of death as well.

Or P.S., if born in a manger hewn of stone: material matching his eventual place of entombment.

“Father, you had a perfect plan and ideal reasons for Jesus to be placed in a feeding trough not long after his birth…we marvel at the details of this story which are so numerous and so hard for us to get our heads around! Give us grace to understand!”