Birth and burial. In Luke’s Gospel, the scene of Jesus’s birth involved him being wrapped and laid, and the scene of Jesus’s death involved him being wrapped and laid. Mary wrapped him in Luke 2:7, and Joseph of Arimathea wrapped him in Luke 23:53. In 2:7 Jesus was laid in a manger, and in 23:53 he was laid in a tomb.

I don’t know where I first heard what I’m going to share with you. I’m certain it was from a preacher, and I’ve seen it in Luke commentaries as well. I just can’t remember the first time I heard it. But it’s an observation that I absolutely love, and I bet you’ll love it too.

In Luke 2:7, Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

The scene is a gentle one. Jesus is the newborn, and he is swaddled snuggly in cloths. The reference to a manger is a surprise, but the guest room (which is what “the inn” refers to) wasn’t available. So there, in a manger, lay the newborn Son—the promised king.

Wrapping and swaddling a child was customary. In fact, people still do it! And the need is obvious, because the newborn cannot take care of himself. He needs to be swaddled, given his dependent state.

This scene in Luke 2:7 is near the beginning of the Third Gospel. This same Gospel tells another scene, much later, involving Jesus being wrapped in cloths. In Luke 23:50–51, there was a man named Joseph from Arimathea, and he had not consented to the Sanhedrin’s decision and action that had put Jesus into the deadly hands of the Romans.

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