From a Crime Scene to a Manger

Sermon: From a Crime Scene to a Manger – God's Divine Answer
We are all familiar with the traditional image of Christmas: a peaceful stable, gentle animals, devoted parents, and a baby asleep in a manger. It is a scene of tranquility and quiet hope. But as we reflect on this familiar picture, we must ask the central questions that give it its profound power: Who is this Baby lying in a manger, and why was His birth so monumental that it required God Himself to enter our world? 

This morning, we will explore the Nativity not as a gentle bedtime story, but as God's powerful and direct response to a cosmic crime.

The true meaning of Christmas is found in understanding the Incarnation—the astonishing act of God joining Himself to humanity. This is not merely a birthday celebration. This is why no one ever writes on your birthday cake, "Happy Incarnation." This was a singular event in all of history, a divine intervention with eternal consequences.

To grasp the awesome significance of the solution that arrived in that manger, we must first go back to the beginning—back to the scene of the crime that made the manger necessary.

2. The Crime Scene: Humanity Murdered by a Lie
To understand the remedy, we must first understand the wound. The Bible doesn't present the Fall of Man as a simple misstep or a minor infraction. It presents the Garden of Eden as a Crime Scene, a place where humanity was spiritually murdered. The perpetrator was not a stranger, but one created with a high purpose: Satan. He was created to serve humanity, to be a point man to the Tree of Life. Instead, in an act of cosmic betrayal, he pointed to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He used deception as his weapon.

Centuries later, Jesus Himself would unmask this ancient enemy in a fiery confrontation with the religious leaders of His day. As they boasted of their spiritual heritage, Jesus diagnosed the murderous, deceitful nature of their hearts by tracing it back to its source. In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 44, He declares, "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him."

Jesus wasn’t speaking in abstractions. He was identifying a premeditated spiritual homicide. Satan, knowing full well the consequence of disobedience, intentionally used a lie to bring about humanity’s death.

The gravity of this act is something even our human legal systems can grasp. If you ask legal experts, "Can a person be charged with murder for a lie that led to another's death?" they will tell you, "Yes, a person can be charged with murder...if a lie they told was the direct or foreseeable cause of another person's death." If human justice recognizes the lethal power of a lie, how much more does divine justice recognize the cosmic treason committed in the Garden?

This foundational crime set the stage for a universal consequence, ushering in a new and terrible reality for all mankind.

3. The Consequence: The Universal Reign of Death
The crime in the Garden was not an isolated incident; it had inherited, universal repercussions.

Adam’s act of disobedience infected the entire human race, subjecting us all to its fatal consequence: death. The Apostle Paul lays this out with forensic precision in his letter to the Romans, chapter 5, verses 12 and 17 through 19 from the New King James Version:
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— [17] For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) [18] Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. [19] For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.

Paul’s argument is a stark contrast of two Adams. Through the first man, Adam, one act of disobedience unleashed sin and death upon the world, making all humanity sinners by nature and subject to condemnation. Death began its reign. But Paul doesn't leave us there. He introduces a second Adam—Jesus Christ—through whom one righteous act offers the free gift of righteousness and life.

If death reigned so completely through one man's offense, what kind of solution could possibly be powerful enough to reverse it? What kind of hero could conquer a king as universal as death itself?

4. The Divine Solution: The Incarnation and the Justification of Life
God’s solution was as profound as the problem was severe. To reverse a cosmic crime and overthrow the reign of death, no angel, prophet, or priest would suffice. God Himself had to intervene directly. The solution was the Incarnation.
This is the central doctrine that the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, assumed human nature and was "made flesh" in the person of Jesus Christ. God did not send a representative; He came Himself, joining His divine nature to our human nature.

Now, you may wonder how this is even possible. Theology gives us a profound term for this mystery: The Hypostatic Union. It simply means that Jesus Christ is one person with two distinct, complete natures: fully divine and fully human. This union of God and man in one person makes Him the "perfect mediator," able to fully represent humanity to God and fully represent God to humanity.

With this understanding, we can see the Nativity in its true light. If the Garden was a crime scene, the Nativity was a Justification of Life Scene. In the manger, we witness the beginning of God's divine plan to justify and redeem humanity from the consequences of the crime committed in the Garden. God entered our world, in union with our humanity, to undo what was done and restore what was lost. This divine act didn't begin with a whisper; it began with a proclamation from the heavens.

5. The Proclamation: A Savior to Conquer Death
The announcement of Jesus' birth to the shepherds was far more than a simple birth announcement. It was the first proclamation of victory, the divine declaration that the solution to humanity's oldest and deepest problem had arrived. Let's revisit that majestic scene from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 10 through 14 in the New King James Version:
"Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. [11] For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. [12] And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger." [13] And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: [14] "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Notice the angel's primary identifier for this child: a Savior. But what was His primary mission? So often, our understanding of salvation is too small.

Forget about the idea that we needed to be saved from an angry God, or even primarily from our bad behavior. It was really about a crime that was committed intentionally against all humanity, and God Himself came to deal with it. The core issue was not just our actions, but our very state of being—a state of bondage to death. Scripture confirms this purpose again and again:

 Hebrews 2:14-15 states that Jesus took on flesh and blood so "that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

• Hosea 13:14 prophesied this victory, with God declaring, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death."

• John 10:10 presents Jesus' own mission statement in direct opposition to the enemy: "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
This divine purpose, this mission to conquer death and restore life, all began in the humility of a stable, with a baby lying in a feeding trough.

6. Conclusion: Feeding on the Truth, Finding Our Worth
The Nativity, then, is God's divine and definitive answer to the crime committed in the Garden. Where a lie brought death, God sent the Truth to bring life. And the setting of this arrival is filled with meaning. It is no coincidence Jesus was laid in a manger, a feeding trough. He is the Word made flesh, the Truth that we are to feed on and be set free from the lie.
And what is that lie? It is the ancient whisper that we can cultivate our own life, that we can be fulfilled and whole independently, apart from God. The antidote to that poison is to feast on the person of Truth Himself.

Sadly, like the woman at the mall who dismisses a nativity scene as "religious stuff," our busy world often misses the profound worth and divine purpose of this event. But the carol "O Holy Night" captures the theological climax of this story with poetic precision:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
That final line reveals the ultimate outcome of the Incarnation. "'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth." Why? Because in that manger, we see how far God was willing to go to rescue us. He humbled Himself, joined Himself to our fallen humanity, and came to justify us from the death sentence we were under. In doing so, He didn't just save us; He affirmed our immeasurable worth to Him.

If the Garden was a Crime Scene, the Nativity is the Justification of Life Scene, where God Himself came to take away the sin and death of the world so that we could be free to be joined to Him who was raised from the dead.