The Poverty of the Christ Child—god’s Gifts Sometimes Come in Very Humble Wrappings

The details of Christmas remind us of much about how we too should live. God arranged things so as to present us with an object lesson through all the different details of the Christmas story.

And in verses 6 and 7 of Luke chapter 2, speaking of Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem to be registered—that very old word which means that the Roman Empire had decreed that all the Jews had to go to their native lands, where their ancestors came from, to be part of a census that would then allow the Roman Empire to collect taxes—they wanted to know how many people there were, what their names and addresses were, so that they could later go and collect their taxes from them.

Joseph and Mary were part of that process, and they went from Nazareth, the village where they lived, to Bethlehem to be registered, and there the labor and birth of Jesus Christ caught them by surprise. So the story begins in verse 6.

It says: “And it came to pass that while they were there in Bethlehem, the days were completed for her delivery.” Now, this is interesting because it seems that Jesus’ birth there in Bethlehem caught them by surprise, doesn’t it? They were not expecting Him to be born precisely there, but there was a detail concerning that, and it is that Micah—I believe it was the prophet Micah—had predicted hundreds of years earlier that the Messiah would be born precisely in Bethlehem, the city of David.

King Jesus, a descendant of King David, was fulfilling a promise God had made to David that his kingdom would have no end, and at that moment God had in mind that descendant of David who would be Jesus, whose kingdom certainly would have no end. So when they went there, they did not know that they were part of an entire prophetic plan and that God intended His Son to be born there in Bethlehem. For once again we see that everything was, as Chapulín Colorado says, coldly calculated, right? God had everything in hand; God is a God of great detail.

Then it says: “And it came to pass that while they were there, the days were completed for Mary’s delivery”; the time came for her to give birth, “and she gave birth to her firstborn son.” That means her first child, which means probably—no, not probably; certainly, if it says firstborn, there would be a second, a third; in fact, there would be several whom the Bible mentions, other siblings Jesus had, children of Mary and Joseph.

“She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths.” When we say diapers, people think of Pampers, right? As though they went to the CBS store to buy a box of diapers. It was not like that. The swaddling cloth was a very humble wrapping, the wrapping used by poor people. It was a fairly large square of cloth; the baby was placed diagonally on that square of cloth, and the corners were wrapped around the baby. Then there was a little ribbon that was tied around the baby, and there he was, tucked snugly into his wrapping of a small sheet. Those were the swaddling cloths He received; it was the wrapping of the poor, and that tells us something about the circumstances of the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn’t it?

It says: “She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger.” A manger, a place for animals—it is the sort of circumstance surrounding the birth of the Son of God that astonishes you. “She laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn,” at the town hotel.

Many pilgrims came to Bethlehem to do the same thing this couple was doing—to be counted or registered—and all the public places where people could stay were occupied: the houses with their guests, and all the places where people, the pilgrims, could arrive with their animals and their little donkeys, or whatever they used to reach the town of Bethlehem. But when Mary and Joseph arrived, there was no room for them, nor was there a hospital where she could give birth. Everything had been coldly calculated by God; everything had a reason for being, a message God wanted to give humanity, which is the very essence of this account.

So remember that: the circumstances of Christmas. And let us go to another passage found, as I was saying, in John chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. Try to keep these two themes connected in your mind. It says: “For God so”—this was the magnitude of God’s love—“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him”—whoever, every man and every woman who believes in Him. What does it mean to believe in Jesus? It means that He is what He says He is.

“Whoever believes in Him should not perish”—underline that and say: should not go to hell, should not go into eternal perdition, should not be eternally excluded from the Presence of God, as we were discussing the other day, right?—“should not perish but have eternal life.” And this other verse, verse 17, also says very intentionally: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

As we have seen, brothers and sisters, the physical circumstances of Jesus’ birth are among the most astonishing details of Christmas—everything surrounding His birth, as we have noted. The Son of God, the Savior of the world, was born under some of the most distressing and least promising conditions we could imagine: into a poor family, with no comfortable, suitable place to be found for the birth of the child Jesus; in a place for animals, surely foul-smelling, uncomfortable, undignified, without a comfortable bed beneath Him—nothing suitable for the One who was to be the Savior of humanity, the King, the most exalted being who has ever existed or ever will exist in the entire universe.

As I have said before, we know that God is a God of details. God had a message, a spiritual and ethical lesson to give us through the details we have just read about: the birth of His Son. I would like to point out three things that invite us to reflect and to become part of that Christmas story ourselves. First of all, brothers and sisters, Christmas speaks to us of sacrifice, of the exceedingly great sacrifice God made to save us from eternal death, from perdition, from eternal exclusion from the Presence of God.

John has said it very clearly: “For God so loved the world.” It was in an inconceivably great way. God’s love for humanity, brothers and sisters, is so immense that it led Him to strip Himself of His glory and His infinite privileges in order to assume the form of a humble, fragile baby, so that through that incarnation, through that entrance into the world, through that human form, God could—within His Plan and His Lordship, in His nature as a moral being who does not pardon sin, yet had to devise a way—design this birth to prepare the conditions for Christ’s atoning death on the cross.

The one who died on that cross first had to be a man, a human being representing humanity. God had said: the soul that sins, that soul must die, and so God had to honor that. Therefore, He designed this incredible plan involving Himself, because the price was so great that only an infinite and pure being could pay humanity’s price. So Christ assumed the cost of our fallen humanity and entered the world in the form of a child, a member of the human race. He was born there under these circumstances; He stripped Himself of His Glory, of His inconceivably glorious eternity, of His unlimited power, and was born as a humble child, preparing for His atoning death for us on the cross.

All of that is part of the mystery of Christmas. God so loves the world that He made an incredibly great sacrifice for us. Jesus’ life was a life of deprivation and hardship, loneliness, betrayal, and discomfort in the world. No one recognized Him; His followers left Him at the last moment despite everything He did before them and all His teachings. His people, for whom He came to humanity, did not recognize Him; they did not accept Him. He went through all these things; He went through temptation and all the discomforts of a man. It says that He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

But the Son of God endured all these discomforts because God’s love is so great, so great, and Christmas invites us to remember that, brothers and sisters: God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son. Christ Jesus’ birth under these painful circumstances announces to us the kind of life Jesus would lead: discomfort, deprivation, self-emptying, sacrifice. Why? Because God wanted us to be saved.

And do you know what, brothers and sisters? God calls us also to embody the same spirit that was in Jesus Christ. God loves the world; God loves humanity. This may be surprising: there are many evangelicals who would like God to hurl a bolt of lightning at the world and destroy it completely. And many times the Bible says that we should not love the world, but when the Bible says that we should not love the world, it is referring to the vanity of the world, the sin of the world, the betrayals of the world, the deceptions of the world. But there is something in the world that God loves, and that is His creation, His creatures. God loves every man and every woman, and do you know what? We are supposed to love people in the same way.

We have to love this city of Boston where God has placed us. We have to pray for the city of Boston. Can you say amen to that? We have to sacrifice ourselves for this city as Christ sacrificed Himself. God has entrusted a great mission to this Church, brothers and sisters, just as He has entrusted one to many other Churches, but today I can speak about my Congregation, this Congregation where God has given us the privilege of remaining and serving as soldiers in the Christian life.

God has placed Lion of Judah—and again I add that we are not unique; there are many good Churches—but God has placed you, He has placed us here in the city of Boston, to be light and flavor for this city. Amen? And we have to love this city as God loved it. If God so loved the world that He gave His Son, what can I give so that my city may know Jesus Christ?

I shared with the brothers and sisters this morning that, for me, God has spoken clearly to me during these past few months about what Lion of Judah’s watchword should be this coming year, and it should be to evangelize this city for Christ, you know? It should be to proclaim the Gospel in every possible way. Our goal should be to fill that sanctuary twice, just as we fill this sanctuary twice. How wonderful it would be, brothers and sisters, if we soon had that sanctuary filled as this one is here. That one holds more than twice as many people as this one, and we are going to fill it twice; that is, four times as many people as Lion of Judah can hold here will fit there in one day, on a Sunday with two services.

Brothers and sisters, what if we conceived a grand vision? What if we said, “We are going to redeem the city of Boston; we are going to fill it with the Gospel everywhere,” huh? We are going to make ourselves uncomfortable. Say, “Glory to God,” even if it is a little frightening. Amen? Believe it: God can do it, brothers and sisters. God can do it.

Just a quick little question here for a moment: how many people are visiting us today? How many new people do we have here? Raise your hand; do not be afraid, do not be shy. Raise it high. We have a lovely group, and by the way, we bless you. We are so happy to have you. You may lower your hands. But I want to tell you, brothers and sisters, look: out there are thousands and thousands of people. We can speak of Hispanics alone: Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Marapan, Roslindale, High Park, South End, East Boston, Chelsea—hey, how many Hispanics are there?

There are so many that we could very easily fill that building several times every Sunday and still fall short, because there are so many people in need. God wants us to pay the price. God wants us to make ourselves uncomfortable, to love the city, to love the people of this city, to love the world as God loves this world. I believe that this is what the Christmas story is about, right? That we have to make ourselves uncomfortable—that is the word. Our love for people should be so great that we conceive a grand vision of evangelizing Boston for Christ.

I intend to make myself uncomfortable, and I hope you will join me. We are already making ourselves uncomfortable with that building over there because I know it is costing us, and the Church leadership has had to pay a great price. The engine of this Church is red-hot; all the turbines are working—financially, materially, the Church’s program. All of that is being expended right now to finish that sanctuary for the Lord because we want to see it continually full.

And I want to encourage you, brothers and sisters, to continue making yourselves uncomfortable this year, okay? Bring people; invite them to Church. Devise a plan for yourself to be an evangelist. I want us to pray that God will give us wisdom about how to develop a sacred methodology for bringing people to the knowledge of Jesus, and I need you to be a people willing to strip yourselves of your privileges. People say, “Well, I work a lot, so I need to stay home.”

You know? God needs warriors; God needs a militant Church; God needs committed people who will give their money, give their time, give their efforts, and for whom nothing is too small if it helps bring the world to Jesus Christ. Let us make ourselves uncomfortable this year as Christ made Himself uncomfortable. Amen? Let us live for only one thing, and that is to bring many people to Him, because God loves the world. God so loved the world, and we see how He made Himself uncomfortable so that His creation might be saved.

Second, Christmas reminds us that God’s foremost desire—I have already said this in a way, but let me emphasize it, brothers and sisters—do you know where God’s heart lies? God’s heart lies in the fact that He does not want anyone to perish. I believe that was what motivated Him. People sometimes think that God has a quota, a limit on how many people can be saved, that it is not possible for everyone to be saved; perhaps that is true because that is human nature, but you know what? God has a great purpose, and that is for everyone to enter in and come to salvation. Those who are not saved disqualified themselves.

We must envision something great: that there are many people out there whom God wants to be saved, and we must be like God, desiring that everyone enter into salvation. The Lord suffered and died on a cross so that we might be saved. Jesus was born in a cradle that was not His own and was buried in a tomb that was not His own either, because He wanted everyone to come to salvation. And that is very important because many people think—people say, “A good God would not allow people to go to hell; a good God would not condemn anyone to eternal suffering.”

And I say, “Yes, amen, that is true.” You know? God does not condemn anyone. John 3:17 says that God did not come into the world to condemn the world; God came so that everyone might be saved. Do you know who perishes? The one who does not believe in Jesus Christ, the one who rejects the Lord. Condemnation comes from people themselves. God does not want to condemn anyone; on the contrary, God is working tirelessly so that everyone may be saved. The only thing required is to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

John 3:17 says, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.” How great God’s love is. God wants everyone to come to salvation, and I say likewise: Lord, let us fill our church with people, let us please Your generous heart, and let us make sure that the greatest possible number of people come to know Jesus Christ.

Third, then, we have seen, first of all, that the Lord loved us so much that He made Himself uncomfortable and stripped Himself of His glory so that we might be saved. Second, that is because God wants everyone to come to salvation and no one to perish, and we must have that same heart, that same love. Third and finally, the littleness and poverty of the child Jesus remind us that God’s gifts sometimes come in very humble, very simple wrapping. God’s gifts, God’s greatness, sometimes come in very small forms. The Christmas account, what we have just read, reminds us of that fact.

We must never despise God’s humble beginnings. We must never allow ourselves to be dazzled by big things, by big packages; rather, like God, we must learn to appreciate small things. That baby in the manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, is an image of the smallest, slightest, most fragile thing one could conceive. Yet in that little child was all the greatness, all the deity of God. That infinitesimally small baby had the greatness of God within Him. The Lord Jesus held a great future there within His littleness.

And this is a call, brothers and sisters, to all of us as a church. We Christians do not allow ourselves to be dazzled by the world’s flashy or luxurious things. We have eyes that can see beyond the surface. Christians must learn to value and appreciate humble people, the poor, and the weak. Sometimes those are the ones God uses to accomplish His magnificent purposes. And I ask the Lord to make us a church, brothers and sisters, that is able to appreciate humble people.

I saw our children this morning, for example, and in my mind I saw the potential these beautiful children have. Out there in the world, our young people are not graduating from high school, much less from college. The birth rate among single mothers is extremely high; all the indicators for our community are very poor, truly terrible.

And I was saying to Him, “Lord, allow these children to be blessed and prospered by You and to become great men and women of God. As for this humble, small community, which describes many people in our congregation, take Your power, infuse it into these children, and let powerful, prosperous, professional men and women—people able to give many beautiful things to the world—arise from this community.”

And God loves our community, and we must work so that these children, these little ones, become something great and powerful. God wants to raise up the children and the poor in our church, and God is eager to prosper and bless us and make us a great community. And we must appreciate small things.

You have to appreciate yourself, for example. Do not look at what you are right now; look at what God wants to do through you. Begin to believe that God is committed to us as a small, humble community and that God wants to take us to great heights. Parents, begin to invest more and more in your children. Buy them good books; buy them toys that stimulate their intelligence. Believe that God is going to raise them up and take them very high, because God appreciates this community.

God wants to show the world that when a community like ours receives Him, He then begins to work and transforms it into something wonderfully great. I believe God is going to do something extraordinary through us, and one of the things I feel, precisely as I speak about these coming months—look, out there the devil is wreaking tremendous havoc; he is helping himself to the lion’s share, and we must tell the community out there—I believe the theme of our evangelistic effort must be to ask people to take refuge in Jesus Christ.

These are difficult times. Our people are not progressing; this small community is not reaching everything God desires for it, and so we must tell people, “You know what? God wants to prosper our community. God wants to bless us. God wants to raise us up. God wants to take us from littleness to greatness. Come to Christ; get the values of the Kingdom of God into your minds and hearts; begin to live according to the values of the Kingdom, and God will prosper us and raise us up greatly, because God loves those of humble circumstances.” The only thing God needs is for us to receive Him.

Why did God send the shepherds to visit that poor little child who embodied all the plans He had for humanity? Those shepherds were despised and scorned by people; working as a shepherd was something very, very degrading to the Jews. But to whom does the Lord reveal Himself that night, there in the wilderness and in the hills of Bethlehem and Galilee? He reveals Himself to the shepherds—insignificant people, poor people, despised people—and says to them, “I want you to go and witness the birth of My Son,” because God loves small things; God loves humble people.

God wants to make an example of our congregation and this community. The potential is incredibly great, and we must work and cooperate with Him by valuing small things. God did not choose to place His Son within a rich or distinguished family, but within a poor and humble family. Instead, He sought the moral values of Joseph and Mary; social or economic details did not matter to Him.

That is another thing I was thinking about. As a church, brothers and sisters, we must become a people of solid values: family values, the value of work, discipline, and study, and the values of integrity, honesty with one another, and being trustworthy people. We do not need to put on great displays of anointing. Look, what God wants is for us to feed on the Gospel, to feed on the values of the Gospel, and to live honest lives, Spirit-filled lives, exemplary lives, lives that inspire people to come to church because they say, “There is a community of people who live out the Gospel,” and that is what will revolutionize our community.

What motivated God to look upon Mary and Joseph so that they might adopt His Son, so to speak? Their character. It was not their wealth—they had none. It was not their education. Mary was a humble young virgin from around Nazareth, but God saw their hearts, and that is what God visits. When God sees a humble and simple heart, He falls in love and does great things through such people.

So when Joseph thinks Mary has betrayed him and been unfaithful to him, Joseph says, “You know what? I am not going to humiliate her; I am not going to condemn her,” and he decides to leave quietly. But the angel tells him, “No, do not worry. She has not been unfaithful to you. It is the Son of God who is within her; the Holy Spirit is the one who has caused her to conceive.” What great character that man had; what moral fortitude he possessed.

When the angel tells Mary, “Hey, God has chosen you to…” many sisters say, “Oh, glory to God! If only it were me.” But you know what? The price was very high. I believe that for the rest of her life people criticized Mary because they thought, “This woman was unfaithful to her husband.” But Mary said, “Lord, let Your will be done. I am Your servant; do with me whatever You wish,” and it was people like that whom God fell in love with. He did not look at their worldly greatness; He looked at their moral and spiritual greatness, and that is what He wants us to be as well.

Because what God seeks is the heart, and we must do the same, not only with ourselves but also with others. I earnestly desire for Lion of Judah to become a church distinguished by the love we have for one another and by the care we give to the little people of the city. I rejoice when I see my brothers and sisters on Saturday mornings preparing sandwiches, juice, and coffee, then hurrying out into the cold to give food to hundreds of people there on the street, there on Massachusetts Avenue, and preach the Gospel to them.

There are people here in our church who have already been doing it for years, and now many more people have joined them. God is using that to bless many. Just yesterday we held a beautiful little party here for the children at the Shriners Institute, children who have suffered very, very terrible burns, many of whom have been disfigured by those burns. God has touched Marta Garzón and many brothers and sisters who have joined together to care for those children, and yesterday we had a lovely little party here at which gifts were prepared for them and nothing was lacking—a well-prepared party for those little children and their mothers, who are here from different Latin American countries—because we love the world’s little ones.

And we could mention many other things that God’s heart does through us—I am not going to say our church. I encourage you, brothers and sisters, to envision that image of the God who loves the small and humble, and may acts of good works multiply among us; may we appreciate poor and simple people. In this church there must be no favoritism toward anyone. The rich and the professionals are worth just as much as the humblest worker in this church, and that is how it must always be, brothers and sisters (applause). There must be no kind of favoritism among us.

We must also care for one another, you know? Always keep an eye out for the person who arrives at church looking a little lost and all alone. Sometimes I say, “Brothers and sisters, let us greet one another,” and from up here I can always see three or four people over there looking like bedraggled little chicks, and no one goes to greet them because they seem to have gotten lost in the crowd. And I need you to have a pastoral eye and always to be watching out for the visitor, the person who perhaps looks a little lost, and sometimes the less pleasant person.

God brings all kinds of people to our church. And we must be a church of good works like that. There are lonely people in our church who are here working while their families are in other Latin American countries; invite them to dinner in your homes. Let us be tenderhearted people. Let us be people who care, right, for the fragile, the simple, and those who are going through difficulties. Because God did that. God took what was simple; He took His Son, had Him become incarnate in an undistinguished family, and had Him be born in undistinguished circumstances in order to leave us a message. That is the message of Christmas, the message of generosity: God’s generosity toward humanity, and a God who now tells us, “Pass it on.” You too must be people with the same love, the same goodwill, and the same good purposes.

God’s people—and I will finish with this—must be distinguished by their love for others, by their protection of life, by their compassion, and by their determination to protect and provide for the smallest and weakest people in the world. That is why children must be so important to us. That is why people with disabilities, those with cognitive or physical limitations, must be very precious to us. We must not care only for those who are capable of doing everything, those who can give us something in return. Our hearts should leap toward those who can give us nothing in return, and we must inconvenience ourselves in every possible way to make that happen. We must be a family of good works, a family of love and tenderness.

I conclude with the words of Colossians chapter 3, verses 12 and 13. With this, I invite the group of praise brothers and sisters to come up here. This is God’s call to you, my brothers and sisters, this Christmas. It says: “Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with heartfelt mercy”—it says, like God—“with kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another. Just as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.”

Brother, may the Lord bless you this Christmas. May God’s love be revealed through us; may we appreciate simple and humble things, the poor and needy people of a community out there, of a world that needs God. They do not know how to distinguish their right hand from their left, and we must love them as God asked Jonah to love Nineveh. We must love our city, inconvenience ourselves for it, and love the poor and the weak in our community. May that Christmas spirit be embodied in your heart and in mine and in our congregation. May the Lord bless you.