Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Removing the Romance from the Manger

"Away in a Manger" has that line that I've always questioned: "The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying He makes." How do we know He didn't cry? In addition to being fully God, Jesus was fully human, too, right? And I've never met a newborn that didn't cry, among other things.

Pastor Petersen over at Cyberstones does a nice job of removing the romance of the manger...and he's spot on. Click here to read his post "The Poor Baby Wakes and Bawls."

2 comments:

Becky said...

My favorite Christmas song, I think. I popped over to the Cyberstones site and read some of the comments there.

Here's mine, a woman who breastfed (exclusively) her 4 children.

I'm guessing that Jesus was put in a manger to keep Him off the ground. And I think that He was sest in the manger only when He was not in His mother's arms. In eastern cultures, it is the norm for mother and baby to be together constantly. While I'm American and was raised in the US, where babies were separated from their mothers at birth (at least that's how it was in my family), I gave birth in Japan, and my babies all slept right beside me. Even in my sleep, I could sense the little one stirring, and as I learned each child's particular signals, I often could sense the baby's need for something I could give even before the baby had to cry to get my attention.

Of course, we don't know that Jesus didn't cry. Even if He had, I don't think THAT would be a weakness or a sin. My take: even though I'm not "Mary", I still had an ear (and it seemed like I had this extra sense or something until my children started school -?-) on call so that I could care for my child. I'm quite sure Mary's ear was even more alert so that she would take very good care of her baby, the Son of God.

Just some thoughts from a mother's viewpoint.

Kurt Onken said...

Nice insights, RL. Thanks!