Only Luke’s Gospel provides us with the details surrounding the initial hours of Jesus’s birth. So it is not by coincidence that Luke repeats three times that on this special day, Jesus was placed in a manger.

Because the guestroom was not available, Mary and Joseph sheltered in the stable or cave underneath their relative’s house with the animals. These animals provided food for the family and were kept safe from predators during the night in the stable.

In this humble setting, Mary wrapped Jesus in swaddling cloths and laid him in a mud or stone manger, a feeding trough for the animals, the only suitable bed available to them.

Although mangers were a common feature of Jesus’s day, they were not ordinarily used as a crib for an infant and certainly not for a baby with royal blood flowing in His veins. Mangers, however, were used in the prophetic imagery of the prophet Isaiah to describe Israel’s ignorance in their understanding of the Lord.

“Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth! For the LORD has spoken: . . . The ox knows its master, and the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand” (Isaiah 1:2–3).

In accordance with Isaiah’s message, Luke records the birth of our Savior as unattended by kings, priests, prophets, rabbis, or scribes. Jesus, in the manger, like the food in the feeding trough, would be Israel’s nourishment, yet would Israel know the Lord and would they recognize the anointed One?