Sermon: “Keep the Manger in Christmas”, Isaiah 9:27, Luke 2:1-20, December 24, 2025

Scripture: Isaiah 9:27, Luke 2:1-20

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

 Title “Keep the Manger in Christmas”

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Let us pray.

In the Netflix movie Ballad of a Small Player, Colin Farell plays a grifter who goes by the name Lord Doyle. Farell is so addicted to gambling he’s willing to stop at nothing–lying, stealing, threats–to play just “one more hand.”

One of the coolest things is that the movie takes place in an opulent casino in Macau, China. And shot through the film are references to Buddhist and traditional Chinese religion, like luck, fate, and spirits. At one point, his Chinese love interest in the film (who also happens to be a loan shark) says that Lord Doyle is like a “hungry ghost.”

Hungry ghosts are ghosts who have been cursed with larg-ish mouths to stuff their faces full, but huge bellies that can never be satisfied. At the high point of his wheeling and dealing Doyle looks at his reflection in a silver pan and sees his face but with ones of these disfigured mouths. At this point we realize that he’s the hungry ghost, trying to feed this deep hunger with every hand of cards. But it’s never enough to fill him up.

Now, though I don’t necessarily subscribe to traditional Chinese religion, but you don’t have to to see that this movie provides us with a striking metaphor for our human nature.

You see, inside us we all have a deep spiritual hunger to be met. While feeding our bodies is pretty straightforward–food in mouth, belly full, our spirits are a bit more complicated. As one philosopher once said we all have a “God shaped hole” in our souls. That we were made to be filled with God, but the problem is that we keep trying to fill that hole with all sorts of things that aren’t God.

For Farrell’s Lord Doyle, it’s gambling. Addiction is probably the easiest one to spot. Sex, drugs, rock n’ roll. But we all have ours, even if they are less subtle–even celebrated. Could be our careers, could be our families. Our achievements–or lack thereof. Money, power. Even our own sense of victimhood, how the world has arrayed itself against us. It can even be our own good works, our own desires and actions for good and righteous things.

Problem is that no matter how much we shove in there, it never seems enough. We’re all like kids on Christmas who’ve opened the last present–is that all there is? You know the feeling. Getting everything you’ve ever wanted but still feeling empty. Or not getting what you wanted and just assuming that when you do then everything’s gonna finally be good. That’s because–you and me–we’re like those hungry ghosts, in that our bellies are bigger than anything we can fill them with. Because they’re the size of eternity, the size of God.

Which brings me to, believe it or not, Christmas. Why? Well because Christmas is all about the answer to all of our spiritual hungers.

How? The answers lies in what Mary and Joseph use as a makeshift cradle for the baby Jesus. The answer lies in the manger. This sermon’s called “Keep the manger in Christmas” for that reason.

Coming to the city of Bethlehem for the census, Mary and Joseph find there’s nowhere indoors to stay. She’s pregnant, the water breaks, things are urgent, so they settle with a stable, or a cave. It doesn’t say exactly. But we do know it says that they lay him in a manger. The manger being the feeding trough for animals. “The stars in the night sky looked down where he lay/the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.”

Now, as with most things in the Bible, the manger is no accident. There’s deep meaning here. The francophones here might be quicker to the point, because they know where the word “manger” comes from. Manger… “to eat.” Which comes from the latin mandere–“to chew.” What do you keep in a manger? Food. Mangers are for food.

Again, not talking literal food here. It’s not like that rotund Scottish Mike Meyers character in Austin Powers, “I’d like to eat a baby.” But the manger in this case isn’t for literal food. But spiritual food.

According to the New Testament it’s Jesus who’s the nourishment that we’ve all been searching for, grasping for in vain. That all of our deepest longings are met in this one who was with nothing to his name. This one who lived briefly, died violently, and rose unexpectedly. That in this person, who was born in a manger, all of our most ancient hungers are satisfied.

“I AM the bread of life,” the adult Jesus says, “I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Hungry? Jesus asks. Tired of gobbling empty calories like a hungry ghost? Then look to the manger. Look to the manger, and through it to the cross, through the cross to the empty tomb, and then through even that to all things made new. Look to me, Jesus says, look to me, and you’re looking into eternity. Look to me and you’ll find yourself filled to the brim. With the Spirit of the Living God.

How about you? Where do you go? What’s your spiritual sustenance of choice? You know, the one that feels good going down but never actually truly hits the spot? The one that never truly satisfies?

Well, the good news is that there is one true source of satisfaction for our starving souls, yours and mine. And the even better news is that this isn’t the kind of meal we need to shop for. We don’t have to seek it out or earn it or buy it with our good karma, or lose it by our bad karma. But it’s already come to us as a pure gift on Christmas. Wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. God’s great home delivery… it’s yours to be received, by nothing but simple faith.

Of course, if you do it doesn’t mean that you’ll be set for life. I’d be lying to you if I said that if you look to Jesus then you’ll never feel spiritually hungry again. But the promise is that the fullness we experience with him in this life, even momentarily, it’s a downpayment, a foretaste of that total forever fullness. Enough to get you through your darkest days.

This night, may you take this good news to heart. That you have been given a sign, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger. Take heart, be not afraid. Gather ‘round this table… and may even the hungriest of ghosts be satisfied.

I offer this to you in the name of the Fath