Those of you who have followed the pew over the years may have noticed some subtle difference in the past few weeks. I am trying very hard not to overwhelm you with scriptures, but to share with you, God’s word in a layman’s way. This week our journey continues. Now of whatever faith do you belong to denominational wise? I’m going to start this blog off as we continue our journey by acknowledging the fact that this past Sunday, November 30 was the first day of the Methodist Church year, and it falls on advent the first Sunday. Advent is a four week season before Christmas. It is the Christian season of preparation and anticipation for Christmas that begins on the Sunday closest to November 30 and it lasts until December 24. It is used as a time for spiritual reflection and prayer and celebrating themes of Hope, peace, joy, and love, often symbolized by an advent wreath with four candles. I’m going in this direction because very soon our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be born and with his birth, he begins his own journey of the Good Way. A source for part of what I will share with you today comes from the book by Kathy Lee Gifford with the Rabbi Jason Sobel. It’s a great book. You can find it on Amazon and get more information about it. It is called the “Rock the Road and the Rabbi”. 

This week we’re going to pick up on a new term. It’s not all that unusual and those of you who read the Bible particularly the Christmas story will recognize immediately what it is we will be looking at. Does the term swaddling clothes resonate with any of you? In the Bible story, swaddling clothes are long strips of cloth wrapped around an infant for warmth and security. It is symbolizing Jesus’s humble humanity, maternal care, and vulnerability. There are some other things that are attached to that term, but that’s speculation and opinion and we won’t get into that. Swaddling clothes were used to wrap an infant tightly,  the idea in that day and time and up for a long time was  swaddling helps a baby transition from the womb to the outside world and swaddling clothes are still used today, but with some modifications. The biblical passage that refers to that can be found in Luke 2:7 and reads as follows…and she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn…

We’ll give a short recognition to probability or supposition, we can probably assume from the fact that Mary swaddled the baby that she was an attentive and loving mother. We know for a fact, according to scripture that the angel who spoke to the shepherds on the hillside mentioned, swaddling clothes as part of the sign to the shepherds that they had found the Messiah. That can be found in Luke 2:12 now there are naturally some very interesting theories about the detail that Luke goes into about Jesus and swaddling clothes. It would be fair to say that some people have pondered that the swaddling clothes were a foreshadowing kind of a prophetic reference to Jesus’s burial clause. The Greek root word is not in the Bible, describing these swaddling glows and it too means strips of cloth. We also must know that that word, the Greek word is never used in the New Testament to refer to burial cloth. The Bible describes the burial of Jesus with different phrases, and it all that comes down to basically saying wrapped in linen cloth. But like most things this is conjecture supposition or just good old boys pondering the possibility. What we can be sure of is when Jesus came into this world, He had loving parents who sought to meet His every need. Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes, which was a custom of the day and an action that shows the tender care and affection of his mother.

Now I want to add to the blog this week some of the things that are from the book “The Rock, The Road and The Rabbi.” You can Google information about the Rabbi if you choose to. First, we’ll start by going back to the book of Luke 2:4-7. For Jesus it all began in Bethlehem.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because she belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledge to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first born, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a major because there was no guest room available for them. 

We have read these verses now for many years over and I’m going to share with you a perspective that maybe you had not thought of. I like the pairing of theological knowledge with the common sense of everyday customs and manners, according to the time frame. Now we’ve heard that Jesus was born in an upstairs room, in stable, and in a cave. The truth is we really don’t know, but we do know that it was in Bethlehem. The Rabbi points out that most likely it was in a cave, and there was a reason for that, of course, we know the reasoning given would be that there was no room in the inn. Now the shepherds and the sheep resigning in that area at that time will not be ordinary, shepherds or ordinary sheep. The shepherds were under the direction of the Temple, and those sheep were used exclusively to supply the temple for the sacrifices to God. We all know that they’re supposed to be without blemish and common sense knowledge tells us that caves some which were cut out of solid rock would be some pretty rough ground. The shepherds would bring the sheep into the cave as they came near to birth, and when that birth occurred, those lambs were wrapped in cloth to protect them from the jagged edges and rough terrain in which they would come up, I guess you might say the shepherd’s version of swaddling cloths. You got to admit that it’s an interesting thought concerning the swaddling cloth. It is from this point that Jesus began his journey on the Good Way. 

Please come back next week here in The Pew and join us as we continue our journey and we take the time to look at these next few weeks before the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Life Is Good

jk