Manger Seen?

My trip to Israel this year was really eye opening.  So many of the things that I had imagined about the land of the Bible were not at all like the reality.  Another pastor friend on the trip put it this way, "All these years I have pictured this place too flat."  That is a good description.  There are some flat places (like here in Texas) but, for example, in Bethlehem, there isn't a flat place to be found.  When people talk of Judah's hills, they do mean hills.

It is also a lot more rocky than I ever imagined.  Rock is everywhere.  That got me to thinking.  Now where I am going with this is not something I am saying you have to agree with, but it is something I wonder about.  Was the manger  that Jesus was placed in at his birth made of wood or was it made of stone?

Let me tell you why I wonder that.  Every where we went, my farm boy eyes were looking at the agricultural sights as well as the archaeological.  Many times they were both.  Everything I saw that had to do with agriculture of biblical times was made of stone.  Some of you may be saying, "Well of course all that remains from that time period would be stone, wood articles would not survive."  That of course is true but it is also part of my pondering too.  You want things that will last.

Our mangers here in the United States are largely made of wood, so naturally we would think mangers there and then would be too.  But I saw several  feeding troughs for animals made of stone.  I have included a picture that is something like a stone trough or manger below.  Stone lasts much longer than wood.  Stone there in Israel in general and Bethlehem in particular, is in great abundance; wood is much harder to come by.  A stone trough or manger would be much harder to turn over and when animals are feeding - things do get moved around in larger animal's eagerness and competitiveness for food.  So I wonder, was it wood or was it stone?  If I were there in that day feeding animals, I would have at least given stone a try.  We know for sure that Solomon's horses where fed in stone troughs, archaeologists have found them.  Could that have worked in Bethlehem too?

Of course it does not make one bit of difference whether it was stone or wood.  The fact is that Jesus was born and Mary and Joseph placed him in a manger. That was the sign the angels told the shepherds to look for and they found him.  If it was made of stone, then think of this,the first thing Jesus' body was laid in at birth was stone.  We know the last thing Jesus' body was laid in after this death was stone - a tomb.  From each, he rose in glory and in victory as it was  purposed by God for that time in his life  He may have started his life at rock bottom.  It surely appeared that his life ended at rock bottom, but there was more to the story.  There always is when it comes to Jesus.

May you and your family have a Blessed and Merry Christmas.

For the journey...

Tim