Why would Jesus choose to be born in a manger?
WATCH
Christmas: Impossible, 2 of 3 from December 14, 2025
“God’s mission benefits all.”
Luke 2:1-20 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon examines what Jesus's choice of birthplace reveals about His character and mission. By analyzing Luke 2, Pastor Michael demonstrates how Christ deliberately chose humble circumstances—being born in a lower-level room where animals were kept, wrapped in cloths typically used for sacrificial lambs, and announced to third-shift shepherds rather than dignitaries. This reveals God's heart to reach the overlooked, working-class, and disrespected people, because "God's mission benefits all."
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What does Jesus’ house say about who He is?
💬 What could God be doing behind the scenes in our own lives that we are unaware of yet?
💬 Who can we support by giving a compassionate ear to what God is doing in their life?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
📖 THE MAIN EVENT (LUKE 2:1-7)
📖 MEANWHILE (LUKE 2:8-14)
📖 CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION (LUKE 2:15-20)
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Hey there. Good morning, church.
There was a time where I felt like that God had kind of put in my heart that I needed to go and pray for people. And I didn't know what that looked like. And so I was like, God, I can't just, like, go and start knocking on people's doors, like, asking for prayer requests. That's weird. And he was like, yeah, yeah, you don't need to do that.
Just walk. And so I would walk around neighborhood. Walk around the neighborhood and just pray for the homes, people who lived in the homes. And I was like, this is stupid. I don't know any of these people.
They don't know me. I'm like, somebody's going to call the cops. They're going to think I'm like, yeah, no, no, no. I'm out of that. I'm out of habit.
Like, this is. This is years ago. I'm out of this habit, and I need to get back into it. But, like, I was like, man, the first couple of days, like, this is boring. I don't know any of these people.
Somebody's going to call the cops on me. But then, like, you know, a couple of weeks into the habit, I just started to notice things about people's homes. And I didn't know, Like, I didn't know who the people were. But you, because you're there and you're watching, you begin to see patterns and notice things. And that sounds, like, super duper creepy, except that, like, you should know that you leave a Mark on the place that you live, which is not bad, neither here nor there.
It's not good or bad. But that means that your home says something about you. Right? So as we're starting off this morning, I just want to give a couple of houses, and I want you to think about. What's the first word that comes to mind when you see these homes?
Can you see that one? It's kind of smaller than I thought it was going to be. You see that? Kind of a little bit. The first word I thought was, like, haunted.
I don't know. I don't think I want to live there. If somebody's living there, they're probably going to cast a spell on me. All right, what about this one?
Pinkies out. Rich. Like palace. Yeah. Anybody who can, like, maintain a fountain in their front yard has got it going on.
Because if you've ever tried to maintain a fountain, it is significant work. All right, what about this one?
Somebody who's free. Somebody's on an adventure. Snowbirds. No bills. Okay.
All right, then we got this one.
Comfort. Vacation. Peaceful.
I didn't hear anybody say about banjos. I'm like, I don't know. Okay, what about that one?
Normal.
All right, what about this one?
Bears. Cavemen. So scary. Maybe dumb. Right?
Like, when you think about cavemen, you got to think like, oh, man, they're primitive. Right? Adventure. Okay, maybe so. Excuse me, I coughed on the wrong side.
My bad. So our homes tell us something about ourselves. We've been in a series, or we started a series last week. We called Christmas Impossible. And this morning, we're going to look at a very familiar story, one that maybe we're super duper comfortable with, but I'm going to give you some more information about it.
I'm going to try to cast it in maybe a different light than the one that you've seen before. Not because I'm just contrary, but it's because I love you and I want you. And I want you to see the picture that the scripture is painting more than I want you to see the picture that the culture paints for us. So Christmas Impossible. We're looking at the Christmas story, but we're going to tackle it from a little bit of a different lens.
And so before we do that, let's pray together. Got the words up here on the screen. And we do this every week. And I hope it is becoming familiar to you if it wasn't a practice that you grew up in and doing it was not something that I did growing up. And so, again, we can take kind of familiar things for granted.
But every time, like, I spend time thinking about, what is it that God wants me to want? What is it that God wants me to pray for. He brings me back to these words. And so as we pray, I don't just do it because then I don't have to think about what to pray before I preach. I do it because I really think that Jesus wants to form these attitudes in us.
So let's take a deep breath together, and I'm just going to give you a second. If there's something burdening you, if there's something that's distracting you this morning, just take a second and talk to Jesus about that thing, And let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. Let's navigate in the Scriptures to Luke chapter two.
Luke Chapter two in the Bible. If you want to follow along with me in the blue Bibles, I've got it here on page 1069. 1069 in the blue Bible is Luke chapter two. And whether you've been in church or not, I suspect that you have seen these verses. These are some verses that end up in all different kinds of places, particularly around this time of year.
It's one of the things that I like about Christmas is that, like, everybody. Everybody tells this story, whether they believe it or not.
And so we should be somewhat familiar with that. But I'm hopeful that we're going to see some big stuff that's kind of going on. So Luke chapter two, starting in verse one, we'll do one through seven to start that first, like, paragraph there. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and all went to be registered, each to his own town.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. Okay, is that the first time anybody's read that story this morning? Like, it'd be super cool if it was.
And if it is your first time, like, usually I would not read it like that, but, like, there's this polish that happens on Christmas stuff, and you're like, if I read in those days, the decree went out, like, I just have. I have to do something. I've gotta polish it up, right? But if I wasn't doing that, like, this is kind of an underwhelming thing. We're starting with taxes.
Who's really, really excited about paying taxes? Y'. All. Boo boo. We're gonna go.
We gotta travel to take a census. Census means that they're counting us so that they can tax us. I don't know how you feel about taxes, but there's literally nobody who really gets worked up over taxes. And that's how you like. That's boring, right?
And then there's a little bit of spice in here because you've Got David traveling with his betrothed, somebody who his bride to be his engaged, and she is already with child. So we're like, I don't know what's going on here. But then she gives birth to her firstborn child. She wraps him up, she lays him down. Now we got a baby.
Like that happens every day. Babies are born and every day taxes are paid once a year. Like censuses happen every 10 years. This is normal. This is boring.
We should not be excited about this. This is like adulting.
So Joseph's family is from Bethlehem, which is, which is a small town, it's on the south side of Jerusalem. But he grew up or he lives in Nazareth now. I don't know if you know Joe, but. But Joe's a blue collar worker. Like, he's a builder.
And so he actually lives in Nazareth. And one of the cool things that we know about this time period is that Nazareth was right next to a construction project where the Roman government was building this giant aqueduct. So they were building this huge civil engineering project. And so Joseph probably lived in Nazareth because there was lots of work with a government contract next door when he was living in Nazareth. So like, logically, he's a guy who works with his hands and he lives where the jobs are.
Right, but that's boring. Like, that's. You mean he just goes to work? Yeah, he just goes to work. His name's Joe.
Literally, Joseph. His name is Joe. He. But, but I. But like, so does anybody, like, feel like, okay, like maybe why are we spending time on this?
Why do we. Why is this the passage that we read every year at Christmas? Like, we got, we got taxes, we got a hard working guy who's just living near his job site. He's got to go home to count census. His.
His betrothed is knocked up. That's a little bit. I don't know about that. But, like, then she has the baby. Baby's healthy, no complications.
Like, what's. What are we doing with this story now? What's a swaddle?
It's the way you do it. It's a wrap. Okay. See, the moms know. I'm like, I don't even know what a swaddle is.
She gave birth to his firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths. Like, swaddling cloths. What's a swaddle? It's like the way that you wrap a baby up, right? I wonder if this story didn't change how that word is used.
I wonder if swaddle didn't mean something different at the time. We'll get back into that. But like, okay, what is a manger?
There's a little box with straw in it, right? It's a feeding trough. Like, it's a place where animals go to like, eat food out of you. Don't put babies into feeding feeding troughs because they will get eaten. They won't get eaten.
But like, it's unsanitary. It's weird to put babies in mangers. Please do not go to your local farm and leave babies in their mangers. The farmers will not appreciate it and neither will the babies. But like, we've got a story here that's like, okay, we got swaddling cloths.
I don't know what a swaddle is, but maybe it means how they wrap the baby up. I got the baby sitting in a manger. That's a little bit odd because babies don't like, need to be around livestock. Maybe there is something else that's going on. But there was no place for them in the inn.
This is a small town. If there is an inn, there's probably only one. But there may be more going on behind the scenes here because our house tells us something about who we live in. So it's. If our house tells something about us, what does Jesus house tell us about him?
If this is Jesus birth story, what does his house tell us about him? Because when we did our opening exercise, a lot of what I saw is like, the differentiating thing is like how much money you have, right? But sometimes it's the thing that tells you about your house is not how much money you have. It's about what resources are available to you. Like what natural resources are available.
Because we live in a land that has a bunch of trees. But if you lived in a land that didn't have a bunch of trees, you probably wouldn't build your house out of wood because wood would be way, way, way, way more expensive, right? You would use what you have there.
Sometimes it tells you something about the culture that you grow up in, what people are used to doing. Sometimes it tells about, like, your background. So what does Jesus house, what is the place that Jesus is born in, say about who he is and what he's like. And you're like, michael, don't do that. He's just a little baby.
He didn't get to choose no friends. He got to choose teenagers. Jesus is the only person in the world that got to choose his parents.
And he chose them all the people on the planet at the Time Jesus says, I want to be born to Joe.
All the moms on the planet at the time, he said, I want to be born to Mary, and I want to be there where they are, out of town, staying somewhere where there wasn't room for them to stay where they normally would. If I got to pick, I think I would pick to, A, be born in a time when there was air conditioning, but B, probably born to some people that had a little bit more means.
They didn't even have a camper to bring along. They had to stay with somebody.
What does Jesus House say about who he is? I don't know that we necessarily think on that or chew on that. And I don't know that when we think about, like, Jesus, we think of, like, we might think of little baby Jesus, but, like, what does it mean that Jesus, like, had to borrow things from people, that instead of owning all of the places where he could go to his summer home and he could go to his fall place, like, he went some. He came at a time and a place to people who needed help when he could have picked. What does Jesus House say about who he is now?
So that's what's happening in the city. In the city town. That's what happened in Bethlehem. Meanwhile, there's something that's happening outside of town. Actually.
Hold on, let me introduce this to you. Cause I'm looking at my slides, and my slides are different this week than they typically are. And I'm like, what did I. What was I even talking about? So in Palestine, you know, I said, hypothetically, if you lived in a place that didn't have trees, then you wouldn't build with wood, right?
And I said that hypothetically. But in fact, like, Israel, the land of Israel, doesn't have a ton of trees. And particularly around Nazareth. And so houses typically looked like this, which was like a cave, like a natural cave. And you're like, michael, like, people didn't live in caves.
Like, yeah, people live in caves to this day. Like, this is from an article in 2014 where people are given tours of their home. And this is, like, their kitchen. Their kitchen. You see, there's like, a little bit of a raised area.
And so the little bit of a raised area, they sleep up there and then a little bit down, they cook there on this flat part. And then they're talking about how, like, they're shepherds or they keep a flock in order to have milk and cheese and all that kind of stuff. But also that's their heating system in the wintertime. So they've got upper levels for sleeping, middle levels for, like, cooking and living and dining and all that kind of stuff. And then there's another layer that goes down, and that's where they keep the animals in the wintertime, because the animals need to be protected from the cold, but they also provide heat to the house.
Like, the way that they live is a little bit different than, like, how we would picture it. And these are like common houses in Nazareth.
And so I think it's possible when the word here for inn is the same word that they use when they talk about the upper room. You know, Jesus had the Last Supper and he took it in an upper room. It may be that when they say there's no room for them in the inn, they mean there was no room for them in the upper area where people normally sleep. And so instead of being up in the sleeping quarters or even in the middle area where there was like, kitchen of his family home, they put him down in the lower part where the animals would normally sleep. And instead of the manger being like this wooden box that they kept around, it was actually like a stone piece that was carved out of the rock that stayed there all year round.
Because in the winter they put animals in there. And so they had a little manger there, but that means that they're staying with their family.
They traveled all this way, they're staying in their family's home. And he's betrothed, but she's already pregnant. And we don't want to put them up in the front of the house. Like, let's put them in the back of the house.
Let's make sure people don't know. We'll let you stay here. But I don't know, what does Jesus House say about who he is?
Meanwhile, there's something that's happening outside of town. Let's look in verse eight.
In the same region. So we're in the same area, but not in Bethlehem. There were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them. And the glory of the Lord shone around them.
And they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.
And suddenly there is with the angel A multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he's pleased. So meanwhile. So that's what's happened like inside Bethlehem. We've got Mary and she's in the back room and she's laboring, and then she gives birth to a baby. So now we got a baby.
Okay? And that's what's happening inside of Bethlehem. But then nearby, in the same region but outside of the town, you've got a bunch of shepherds that are out watching over their flock by night, like they are. They are the guys on the third shift. So you don't usually take the third shift unless you don't have the seniority, right?
So these guys are probably not primo shepherds. And shepherds, like by themselves was because they had a hard job. They were outside all the time. They always smelled a little bit like sheep, like they were not upper class citizens.
But it's to them that as they're sitting around, suddenly, boom, there's a big light and an angel says, fear not. Which is what they have to say when they show up, because we're scared. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Unto you is born this day in the city of David, another name for Bethlehem, a savior who is Christ the Lord. Now, Christ is not Jesus last name, it's a title.
Jesus last name would have been Jesus son of Joseph or Jesus of Nazareth, but when we say Jesus Christ, we're saying Jesus the Christ. He is the Christ. And Christ is a Greek translation of a Hebrew word that means Messiah, which means that he is the anointed one, he's the chosen one, he's the one that God has picked to save his people. So he says to these shepherds unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is the Christ, the Lord. And then he says, and this will be assigned to you.
You'll find the baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. So what that tells me, if he's saying you're going to go to Bethlehem and you're going to look for a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. That tells me that, that these guys did not know Mary. They are a bunch of strange dudes sleeping outside watching sheep that suddenly, boom, there's all these lights, or there is a light and an angel saying, hey, good news, the Messiah is born in Bethlehem. And you're like, oh, well, that should be easy to find.
He says, no, no, no, no, no. You're going to go to Bethlehem and you're going to look for a baby, but you got to find the baby that's wrapped in a swaddle and sleeping in a manger. You never met this baby before. You don't know Mary, you don't know Joe, but you're going to. Like, if you want to see him, that's what you're going to do.
You're going to go and find him. Okay? Like, okay. And then on top of all of that, you've got there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he's pleased. Now, hosts is a weird word.
We don't use hosts except for at restaurants. When you walk into a restaurant, right, the person who greets you is usually the. The host. And what do they do? They get you to the table.
Like, they're like, I'm gonna get you out of the door and sitting down so that you can eat. And I love those people. But that's not who we're talking about when we talk about the hosts. In Scripture, host is another word for army. Like the host of heaven are the armies of heaven.
So we're not just picturing a bunch of angels that show up. We're picturing the armies of heaven that show up. And so they may be singing.
Enoch Shall See Stay. They may be really, really beautiful. But every time that I've seen an army, and it's been more like a war chant, right, we're shouting at the enemy, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he's pleased.
And he comes to shepherds. He comes to guys who are strangers to the holy family. He comes to guys who are. Who are lower class. He comes to guys who are working on the third shift, and the angel announces to them, glory to God and on earth, joy for all people.
What does Jesus House say about who he is?
Although most humans were unaware of what was happening in Bethlehem that night, what God was doing was unprecedented from an angel's perspective. It was unthinkable that almighty creator of the universe who speaks to and things come into existence, would then take on the form of flesh to give people a second chance at being friends with him when they had already turned their backs on him and rebelled. What God was doing on that night in Bethlehem was impossible.
And while the whole human creation didn't pay any attention at all, well, it gave no honor, provided the minimum possible need. But just stay off to the side. I really don't want you to inconvenience me.
All the armies of heaven showed up to declare boldly that what God is doing is going to change the world forever.
He's not the only baby born in Bethlehem. I suspect there were multiple babies that night because if there had just been one baby, then they said, go find the baby. And that would have been pretty easy because babies are loud. I don't think it was a silent night, but that's me being a grinch.
The swaddling cloths, Bethlehem was actually like the trade that was popular in Bethlehem was they raised sheep for the Temple in Jerusalem. They were close to the Temple in Jerusalem and the Temple. The sheeps that got sacrificed at the temple in Jerusalem, they had to be blameless, they had to be spotless. And so when sheep were born, they actually would wrap the sheep up in these special clothes to keep them from getting bumps and bruises, because if they got bumps and bruises, then they couldn't sell them to the Temple. Right.
And so the swaddling cloths, I think were probably usually used on animals. And it was unusual that there was a baby, a human baby, wrapped up in the swaddling cloths that are normally used for sheep and then laid in a manger, which was typically used for feeding animals.
Babies shouldn't sleep in feeding troughs.
What does Jesus House tell us about who he is?
I think God's mission benefits everybody.
All the resources in heaven and on earth are before Jesus. And these are the folks that he comes to take. Tell the good news to.
Working people, disrespected people, sleep deprived people.
And I'm afraid that some of the polish that we put on the Christmas story misses the point. Point.
So let's look at what these guys do. Verse 15.
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that's happened which the Lord has made known to us. So they're going to leave. They're going to leave work early. I don't know who's covering their shift, but they're like, we're going to go. So they're going to travel.
And they went and with haste found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen as it had been told them.
The shepherds choose to investigate, they say lights in the sky, giant armies. Like, maybe that's not maybe. Let's just go see for ourselves. Let's go see what this baby is. And then they go and they find him.
And I just think it's interesting because shepherds, like, didn't know they'd never seen a nativity scene. They didn't know they were supposed to be. I don't think they'd ever seen the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
It had never happened before. And so, like, of the people that should be gathered around the birth of the Savior of the world, like, shepherds is not on the guest list, if I'm making that. But God doesn't use the strong and the mighty and the glorious. He uses the weak and the disrespect.
Now, from Mary and Joseph's seat, this is interesting because these smelly strangers show up, and they're always like, every picture, they're carrying sheep, which is weird. I don't know that I would carry my sheep around, but, you know, whatever.
These smelly strangers show up as. Mary and Joseph are recovering from childbirth. It has been hours since she has delivered this baby. And now there are strangers coming to find her in her moment, not only of pain, but shame, in the back of the house. They come looking for her and they are so excited because they have just had an experience with God.
And they gotta tell you, I gotta tell you what I saw. And she's like, I just wanna go to sleep, please. Right Again, I don't think it was a silent night, but she and Joseph now have to figure out, what do we do with these smelly people that are trying to tell us they can't even verbalize what it is that they've seen. They're trying to communicate. And there's all of them, and they're talking over each other, and it's ruckus, and the baby's waking, like, what do we do?
Mary and Joseph had their own problems, and now they have to entertain folks that. That have just had this supernatural experience and they don't know what it means, and they don't know how to talk about it, but they just gotta share it with them. And I think it's fast the way the scripture says. And Mary just treasured all this up in her heart. Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.
She's not somebody who I think had a full grasp of everything that was happening, but she knows she's involved in a moment that that will never be replicated in human history. And this is not what I signed up for when I said, let it be unto me as you have said. But God, I'm here for it.
Because God's mission doesn't just matter for me. It matters for those that are far from God and those who may not be welcome in the temple and those who don't know that they're invited to the manger scene. God's mission benefits all.
And so as I think about Mary and Joseph and I think about these shepherds showing up at really the worst possible time, I just wonder for us who we could be a support to if we just gave a compassionate ear to listen to what it is that God's doing in their life, even if they can't even articulate it.
And all of the busyness and all of the places we gotta go and all the people we gotta see and all the expectations we gotta meet. What if we just listened to what God's doing in one another's lives?
Because God's mission benefits all.
Jesus, I thank you for this day. Lord, I thank you for your plan. It's not what I would have put together. I thank you that you're not like me, that your wisdom is not like my wisdom.
As Lord, as we think about and chew on like, what does your choice of dwelling say about who youo are and who youo came for? Lord, I pray that we would help. We would be able to see ourselves in light of the work that yout're doing. That Jesus, we could see ourselves as needy and in need of a Savior and tired.
And come to you for rest. And Lord, I pray in the midst of all of the things that happen and all of the things that go on, that Lord, you would give us a patient spirit to listen to the folks in our life.
That you would give us just a patience in your spirit to hear how you're working in the lives of others. And Lord, they may not even be aware of what it is or what you're doing. But Lord, help us to hear behind the curtain the things that the angels would proclaim, the things that go unnoticed for us.
Thank you for this morning. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
