Linger at the Manger

An article from the 1/11/17 Weekly Update by Tim Keller

The tree has been taken down and dragged to the street to be picked up in the coming days. The decorations have been removed and only a few rapidly aging cookies bear witness to the vast array of foods that filled our kitchen table over the course of the past month. The calendar says January and the children are back to school as they brace against the wind and bitter cold of the New Year.

Christmas is over. The shelves at the store are stocked with Valentine’s Day candy and cards. How quickly we have moved past the manger and dashed into the new month with appointments, meetings and work to be done. Christmas is now a distant memory with gifts to be returned and houses to be cleaned.

I can’t help but contrast this reality with what the shepherds at the manger in Bethlehem must have felt as they knelt by the side of the newborn King. I have an odd sense that they were not in a hurry to leave. Like a grandmother adoring her first grandchild I think they must have been content to linger at the manger and simply stare at the precious Son of God in His perfect infancy. Even if their words had been used up, His presence was assuredly intoxicating, causing them to lose track of time and any other world outside the one confined in the inn.

We move ahead a few thousand Christmases and what do we see? Devoted followers of the Messiah pause from their frenetic pace, as if looking through a storefront window, just long enough to gaze at the Christ child.

We stop, we bow, we sing and perhaps even reflect. Then, we hurriedly move along to re-establish the world beyond the manger. The warm of late December is quickly replaced by the cold of January; a perfect match for the loss of the intimacy of the Christmas season and the cold that so naturally follows.

Could we take just a few more minutes to linger at the manger? Could we sing a carol in June to remind us of the gift we seem only to be able to adore during advent? Could we gather together and quietly reflect on the sacrifice of the Father and the Son in approving the plan of salvation for the world?

Let us not race past Bethlehem in our efforts to reach Jerusalem. For in the quiet moments at the manger we pause long enough to think of Him and His love, mercy and perfect holiness.

Today, why not take a moment and bow once again at the manger of the Son of God who expressed His love is the most unselfish act in history.

Come; let’s linger at the manger for just a few more minutes.