JESUS DID NOT COME TO STAY IN A MANGER

Children can teach us a lot about subtle communication, particularly when it comes to listening to God. When our daughter, Hannah, was a toddler, we made the mistake of putting our wooden Nativity set under the Christmas tree where she could easily reach it. One day as I was looking under the tree for presents to shake, I noticed that Mary and Joseph, the shepherd, and the wise men were all looking lovingly down at an empty manger. Baby Jesus was missing.

I started looking all over the house for the Messiah -- in cabinets, under furniture, behind doors, in the VCR. (I found animal crackers in there once, so it was a valid place to look.) The King of kings was nowhere to be found.

A little later that evening I was putting some of Hannah’s toys away when I noticed her little yellow Fischer Price school bus in the corner. Looking inside, I noticed that the bus had the usual passengers -- the bald Fischer Price doctor, the construction worker with his little hard hat, a policeman, a mommy pushing a baby carriage, and the bus driver. They were all smiling in their places; but there in the third seat back on the right side was Baby Jesus with a big smile on his face, too. I was struck by the realization that my tiny child had solved the mystery of the Incarnation in her own special way. She seemed to know that Baby Jesus did not come to stay in a manger but belonged on the bus, hanging out with all the other smiling people. Come to think of it, putting that Nativity set under the tree was not a mistake at all. It was simply another opportunity to hear the still, small voice of God through the wonder of a child.

-- Robert Kaylor in Come to the Manger

#3996