Luke 2:12-14

This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”—Luke 2:12-14

The nativity scene you probably have in your home is now iconic. We envision a tidy, almost shabby-chic scene with well-dressed people and well-behaved animals. It’s lovely but inaccurate. It also robs the truth of significant meaning concerning the first coming of Christ into our world. Our text today finds the angels telling the shepherds to look for a sign, and we learned there are three types. A sign might be something miraculous, or it might be something that attests to a truth. In this case, it was an otherwise mundane thing that pointed to something eternal. The baby lying in a manger indicated the upside-down way God came into our world.

Small Group Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever worked with livestock? What was that like? Would you describe the animals as tidy? Why would Jesus want to come into the world like that?
2. How does the image of a stable and manger challenge our romanticized notions of nativity? What does it tell us about the reality of Jesus’ birth?
3. When the angel told Mary and Joseph they would be parents to the Messiah, do you think they imagined His birth to occur the way it did? What might they have been expecting? Read Luke 1:19. What do you think Mary learned through the experience?
4. Imagine yourself as one of the shepherds who received the angel’s announcement. How might the news of Jesus’ birth in a stable affect your initial expectations and understanding of the Messiah?
5. Reflect on your experiences with “messy” or unexpected encounters with the divine. How can the image of the stable encourage us to find God amid the ordinary and the challenging?