Meditations on the Birth of Christ I: Swaddling cloths and the Manger

Throughout the next week, I’ll post a few mediations on how the Scriptures treat the Birth of our Savior. Today’s is straight from St. Jerome:

Luke 2:6-7. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manager, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Both the swaddling cloths and the manager are as important for their symbolic value as they are for the truth they express. First, why specifically ‘swaddling cloths’? Because we know from Wisdom 7:4 that this is how David came into the world. Jesus is the new king on the Davidic throne and Luke specifically uses the swaddling cloths to make this clear from His birth.

But the manger is even more key. Why not lay Jesus simply on some hay in the barn, or hold him? The manger has symbolic value: it is the trough where animals are fed. Jesus, as the new manna, is sustenance for the world. Luke mentions the manger three times (also in 2:12,2:16) to underline this point in our minds. As Jerome points out, Luke has an “overriding interest in the theme food” as a symbolic development of the Eucharist. Clearly, from the time of His birth, Jesus was intended to be our food.

Remember this Christmas, the Davidic King Jesus came to sustain us through His sacrifice.

God bless,
Jay