SHEPHERDS SEEK SWADDLED SAVIOR
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the Baby, who was lying in the manger.
Luke 2:15-16 (BSB)
The shepherds immediately set off on a journey to seek this Baby Savior. The angel had told them the baby would be wrapped in “swaddling cloths” and lying in a manger. Research revealed many things we did not previously know about “swaddling cloths.”
- Swaddling cloths could also be used as burial clothes http://living4jesus.net/dynamic/in.swaddling.htm
- 2. It was the custom in the Middle East to wash the newborn baby in salted water and wrap them in swaddling cloths. Artist Jenedy Paige’s painting “Little Lamb” depicts Jesus in a stone manger resembling a stone altar, wrapped in cloths with symbols of Mary and Joseph’s lineage embroidered on them. She explains that when a woman married, she lovingly embroidered these strips of cloth. These were the linen strips wrapped around the couple’s hands in their marriage ceremony and later clothed their newborn wrapping the child in a symbol of his/her parents’ covenant commitment.
See an interview with Jenedy Paige here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fAkq75B6nY
- 3. We read that the shepherds to whom the angels appeared were keeping watch over the lambs to be used for Passover sacrifices. When an ewe was ready to deliver, the shepherds would take her into a cave and wrap the newborn lamb in swaddling clothes to prevent it from injury and deformity because the sacrifice had to be perfect. https://sites.google.com/site/beautifulbiblefacts/lamb-in-swaddling-cloths-lying-in-a-manger
These shepherds would understand the concept of swaddling God’s perfect Lamb. Many years later, some of them might have recalled seeing the newborn Messiah who became the perfect sacrifice for their sins wrapped in swaddling clothes like a sacrificial lamb. The stone manger/altar, the swaddling/burial cloths, and later the myrrh brought by Magi—a spice used in burial—all foreshadowed the Baby’s ultimate purpose for becoming a man. Jesus came to this earth, ultimately, to be God’s final, perfect Lamb sacrificed to redeem us from sin.
As you celebrate the Baby Jesus in the manger this year, remember that He was literally “born to die” for YOU! Worship Him as Savior and Lord!
Father, the shepherds rushed into the night to seek Jesus. Help us to be that eager to know more of Him! We “want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death” (Philippians 3:10).
Worship with Michael Card singing “To the Mystery”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkVmo70p-o8