The Sign of the Savior in a Manger
December 21, 2025 / No. 4329M
Dear radio friends,
When Christ Jesus was born about 2,000 years ago, an angel appeared to lowly shepherds near Bethlehem. While shining God’s holy glory, they declared this gospel in Luke 2:11-12: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
Dear radio listener, there is one real Savior from sin, judgment, and fear—only one, and it is this one born in Bethlehem, no longer a child, but also the crucified, risen, and ascended King Jesus. In this season that many call Christmas, it is important that you are not distracted from this one and only Savior. Among the many distractions that come at this time of year, I want to point out another kind of distraction from the true Savior: the false Christ. The true Christ warns in His Word that there will be many counterfeit Christs in these last days. Matthew 24:23: “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not!” Please think with me: Do you believe in the true Jesus Christ, or are you being deceived to trust in someone who is Jesus in name only? It is important that you search the Scriptures to make sure.
In this time of year, you will see many illustrations, pictures, and especially nativity scenes, of the one they call Jesus. But we must ask whether these sentimental scenes depict truth or falsehood. What if these are man-made images which the second commandment of God’s holy law forbids? Worse, what if these are merely illusions which point us away from the true Christ and the true gospel?
Some would call me a Grinch or Scrooge to point this out, but I tell you the truth. The nice, neat, clean scenes of a baby in a manger are inaccurate. Here is the truth: When Jesus, the Son of God, came in our human flesh as a baby, He was born into poverty. He was born into darkness, not light. He was born into ugliness, not beauty. That’s the essence of the shocking message to the shepherds, you see. The angels said, “Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes,” where? in the last place you would have thought: “lying in a manger!” A feeding container for animals.
Joseph and Mary were of the lower class. When they arrived in Bethlehem, there was no room in the inn. An exhausted woman in her third trimester of pregnancy did not gain the compassion of the busy residents of Bethlehem. Joseph searched for an alternate place for his wife’s rest and delivery room. The best he found was a shelter fit for animals. Travelers to Bethlehem stored their sweaty donkeys in a shack or cave. And it was in the dankness of such a stall that Mary went into labor. And it was here that the baby, the Son of David, was born. He looked and sounded like other babies. Bloody, dirty, and crying, with no radiant beams shining from His face. And His bed was not a nice cradle or crib, but a manger, we read. Feeding trough for slobbering pack animals. Mary and Joseph wrapped this child in swaddling clothes, some ordinary cloth or rags that poor people like them had brought along, and laid Him in a manger.
This was not an attractive scene with glowing ambiance. In contrast, Isaiah 53:2 prophesied of Christ’s coming: “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected of men.” John 1:11: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Second Corinthians 8:9: “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.” This is the true nativity scene. This is the true Jesus Christ.
How astonishing it must have been to those shepherds when the angel told them that “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord [they understood that to mean that He is born Messiah King]. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in [not silk or fine linen of a prince but] swaddling clothes, and lying [not in a palace nursery but] in a manger.” Extraordinary in the oddest sense of the word. Surprising!
This shall be sign unto you, the angel said to those shepherds! A sign is something striking which catches your attention and points you to an important reality. The baby in a manger was a sign, an astonishing thing that pointed the shepherds to the true Savior. Notice three points about this sign of a baby in a manger.
First, this sign would very practically provide the shepherds with the correct directions to the correct baby in Bethlehem called Savior and Christ the Lord. They did not have a star guiding them as wisemen later would have. They did not have a map or gps system. The baby in a manger was like a sign posted on the side of the road with an arrow, pointing you in the right direction. The shepherds would look for a place in Bethlehem where there were mangers, feeding containers for animals. That would narrow their search—they would not search homes and inns, but stables. No parent under any ordinary circumstances, you see, would place a baby in a manger! This was a sign to give directions to the shepherds that they might find and worship the Savior of the world!
But secondly, the sign of a baby in a manger was not only for directions, it was also a miracle to behold. Significantly, the word “miracle” in the Bible means “sign.” The angel was telling the shepherds that the baby in a manger was a miracle, a wonder. This is Christ, the Lord, the angel reminded them. Yes, God Himself, now come in human flesh! The Almighty, a weak infant. Creator, now a crying babe. The eternal, now come in time. Uncontainable, now in a feeding container. The Holy One of glory, now hidden in the darkness of a shed. “Great is this mystery of godliness.” One who is truly God and at the same time truly man. Whose Person is God the Son, unchanged, yet incomprehensibly and permanently now united to a human nature of body and soul. God with us!
What a sign or miracle! But more, and most importantly, this baby lying in a manger was a sign that pointed to His work of salvation. He is Savior, the angel said to the shepherds. What kind of Savior? The sign pointed to it: a suffering Savior. Why is Christ, the King, the Son of God, outside in the cold when all the other babies are warm inside? Why is He in a manger rather than a cradle? Why in animals’ quarters and not a palace of a king? This is a sign, the angel said. This is what the Savior came to do, already as a baby—to suffer. To suffer rejection, loneliness, poverty, as God’s wrath came against Him for sin. Second Corinthians 5:21: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Taking upon Himself the sins of all His people, this Christ the Lord began suffering already as a child. From womb to tomb, he would suffer. The cries of the baby rejected at birth would culminate in the cry of Him who was rejected of all men and forsaken of God on that dark cross. The poverty He suffered in that manger signified the awful emptiness He experienced through His life and when He gave it all up in death. Second Corinthians 8:9: “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”
The sign of the Savior in a manger declared that He was born in poverty to make us rich. He came to suffer because this is what our sin deserves! His saving work was to take the punishment that we deserve for our sin. The impoverished baby in a manger is a sign that points us to the true Savior- the suffering One.
Do you not see, dear listener, the danger of a nice, glowing, nativity scene? Then the sign of the Savior’s work of suffering would be hidden. We might have a sentimental picture for warm feelings, but it would distract us from the real Savior come to suffer!
I call you in this season to put out of your mind the distraction of a cute baby in a rocking cradle, and believe in the true Savior, Jesus Christ. All those who repent and believe in this Savior whom God made flesh to suffer in our place the judgment of God for sin may know, as the angel told the shepherds: “Unto you has been born in the city of David, the Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” He has saved you from God’s judgment. He has suffered in your place the wrath of God you deserved. Forgiveness and eternal life is freely yours. This is the true Savior.
He, by the way, is no longer a baby, and no longer suffering as a sacrifice for sin. He is finished with that suffering of judgment in the place of His people, and has risen and ascended to heaven. And as risen and ascended Savior, He is sovereign, working out all things to return and bring about a new heavens and new earth for His people.