Swaddling Clothes

“You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”  That was going to be the sign to the shepherds to show that what the angel said about the birth of the Savior was true. Such an innocent line in Luke,  but filled with so much meaning when put in its context.

It is believed that these shepherds outside of Bethlehem weren’t just average, everyday shepherds, they were temple shepherds caring for sheep that were ready to deliver lambs for the sacrifices. When these lambs were born and inspected to make sure they had no spot or blemish, that they were perfect lambs, they were wrapped in swaddling cloth to make sure that they did not become flawed in any way. These lambs were needed for the temple sacrifices and these shepherds would make their living from the birth of these lambs.

So when the Angel of the Lord told them that the sign that the Savior was born was that they would find him wrapped in swaddling clothes, this would have had a completely different meaning to them than it does to us. See, they would have automatically associated this to mean that the baby Jesus was truly the Lamb of God, perfect and spotless. They may not have known what the full meaning was and that He was going to be the perfect sacrifice, but they knew He was born spotless and pure.

The cousin of Jesus, John the Baptist, had this understanding about the Christ. When Jesus came on the scene at the Jordan River where John was baptizing Jews, he stopped and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

The One who started off in this world wrapped in swaddling clothes, ended up being the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Born amongst the new lambs, God’s Lamb was treated just like the sacrificial lambs born to the shepherds in the fields outside of Bethlehem. The major difference was the animal sacrifices only covered the sin of the people, while the sacrifice of the Lamb of God removed their sins, as far as the east is from the west.

Have a great day and God bless.