Day 21. The world in a stable

[above: Nativity scene— © Guillaume Piolle / [CC BY 3.0] Wikimedia]

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:7, NRSV)

In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.

—C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Most people enjoy solving a mystery. In today’s world a mystery usually involves either figuring out who did a crime or who’s responsible for someone’s death (and sometimes both). As human beings we naturally want an explanation about what happened and how it was done. However the greatest mystery of all involves a miracle beyond our ability to understand.

Accepting the fact of Jesus’s birth into our earthly realm involves believing notions outside of our comprehension. How could something “bigger than our whole world,” as Queen Lucy rightly states in C. S. Lewis’s fictional Narnia, fit in a stable? And yet that’s exactly what happened!

Jesus, who is God, took upon himself our human nature to live among us. He accomplished this by becoming the firstborn son of his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph. So the most powerful force in the universe entered his own creation at the weakest point in a human being’s life. The baby Jesus depended upon earthly parents, and yet, as God, he did not need to rely on anybody. We are unable to process ideas like these because they are contradictory to our finite minds.

Thus, by faith, we accept a truth beyond our ability to understand. This miraculous birth demonstrates that God has such love and compassion for us that he sent his Son, Jesus, into our world, though he is actually so much bigger than the manger he was born in. Only by embracing this mysterious miracle that we can’t figure out can its truth impact our life.

PRAYER: Father, help me to let truths that I cannot understand speak into my life and make a difference in me. May the miracle of your birth always amaze me, even as it remains a mystery. Amen.

By William O’Flaherty

[Christian History originally published this article in Christian History Issue #133+ in 2019]

William O’Flaherty is the author of The Misquotable C. S. Lewis and an enhanced study guide to The Screwtape Letters entitled C. S. Lewis Goes to Hell.