My husband teaches Construction Technology at Ben Barber here in Mansfield.  For those of you who don’t know, Ben Barber is a career and technology high school that all students in Mansfield can attend.  It’s really cool, but I tell you all of that to explain that my husband teaches a fairly diverse group of high school kids from all over MISD.
 
This week he was having some students in his class help build a manger for our Nativity on Christmas Eve.  While working on it, he had several students walk over and ask, “What is a manger?”  So, he started singing Away in a Manger, and a few of them nodded and seemed to get it.  But some still look puzzled, so he elaborated, “You know, the Christmas story – this young couple were traveling, could not get a room and had to sleep in a barn, baby Jesus was born, and they had to put him in a manger because he had no bed.”  And, they just stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language.  So, he explained what an actual manger is — a hay trough or a feed box.  Then the students seemed to understand.
 
Gene came home telling me this story and realized just how many of his students were never exposed to the real Christmas story.  They probably have never read the Bible, sang Away in a Manger or attended a Christmas Eve service.  It seems hard to believe for most of us because we grew up in a time when the Bible was still the standard of truth.  People had a biblical worldview, and even if they did not go to church, they had a Bible in their homes, they knew about baby Jesus, and they knew the 10 commandments were the ultimate rules for right and wrong.  In the last 50 years, that has changed dramatically.  Today a person’s perception of truth is their truth, and Christmas is about getting gifts and a vacation from school and work.
 
You can do two things with this story, get depressed and decide you are going to move to a remote island and raise your children in a commune.  Or, you can let it inspire you to raise a family that knows the truth, knows right from wrong and knows the story of Jesus from his birth to his death and resurrection.  You temper that with love above all else.  You show your neighbors kindness and grace, you forgive your enemies and you put others’ needs in front of your own.  You reach out to those around you, and hopefully you will get the chance to plant a seed in someone’s heart when they ask you, “What is a manger?”