And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths...

It's no secret that babies like to be swaddled. It keeps them stilled and gives them a sense of security. Many say it is reminiscent of being in the womb, where space is limited and one would hardly be able to move.

Yet, even in Mary's firstborn Son being swaddled, there is more going on. While Jesus coming, life, and death were all a fulfillment of prophecy, as St. Matthew is keen to point out, even in His coming, Jesus was acting as Prophet. And so, in the swaddling cloths we have a prophecy from the Christ, Himself.

And it's a prophecy easily overlooked, because babies like to be swaddled, or perhaps because we like swaddling babies or swaddled babies. Christmas is a Christian holiday which is usually palatable for non-Christians for the simple fact that it is about a birth more than anything, or so it seems. People like "warm, fuzzy feelings," and babies are generally good at giving them, so when a birth is celebrated, even when it's God's birth, it's easy for the world—this world of sin and death and decay—to follow along. Birth and life are happy, positive things, so Christmas and Easter are the commercialized Christian holidays. You don't see many, if any, secular celebrations of death or the shedding of blood. You won't find any Hallmark cards commemorating Holy Innocents' Day, Circumcision of Christ Day, or celebrating the martyrdom of an apostle. You won't hear people going around wishing others a Happy Good Friday or exchanging gifts on and singing Ash Wednesday carols.

But Christmas is another story. It's a day to celebrate a birth, a life; and so it is done by many, Christian and non-Christian, over a few objections of secularists who wish to cite "reason over myth," without much of a clue, if any, of what this birth means.

Yet, for the Christian, Christmas is celebrated with good reason. This Child that is born is born to die. He takes on flesh and blood in order to spill that blood and give that flesh over to death. And His swaddling cloths are ever a reminder of that.

Here is the Christ-Child, born into a world of sin and death and decay, and wrapped in cloths and laid in a trough in what was most likely a cave used as a barn. Some 33 years later, He would be taken down from a cross, lifeless, wrapped in cloths and laid in a cave. To you, dear hearers, the Child's swaddling cloths are to be reminiscent of His burial cloths as they were a foretelling of those burial cloths in His day. They are reminders to you that this Child has come to die for you, to shed His blood for you, to give His flesh for you, to be buried with you.

That's right, dear Christian, dear Baptized into Christ, you have been buried with Him. You were wrapped in His burial cloths with Him and laid in that rock-hewn cave of a grave with Him. You have died with Him, for He has taken your sinfulness from you—that which causes you to overlook His swaddling cloths with the rest of the world—and was crucified with it, destroying it, dying the death you deserved for it so that you would not have to. And since He died, He had to be buried. Therefore, Joseph took His body, wrapped it in clean linen cloth, and laid it is His new tomb.

But, just as the Christ-Child grew and could no be longer wrapped in swaddling cloths, such that those cloths were laid aside, and just as He left the cave that was the barn, so also could the grave and the grave cloths no longer contain Him. Peter and John rushed to the tomb to find His grave cloths folded neatly where the body of Christ had laid. He had risen from death!

And you, dear hearers, dear Baptized into Christ, who have died with Christ and were buried with Christ, have also risen with Him. You have been Baptized into His death and resurrection, therefore you have risen to newness of life, a life made holy by this Christ-Child who was born and wrapped in swaddling cloths to die and be wrapped in grave cloths. Just as He laid aside those cloths and rose again, so you have laid aside the trappings of this world to newness of life in Him.

But you, of course, knew this. For you have heard it several times from the pen of St. Paul:

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:3-11)

And again, He wrote,

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:11-14)

Therefore, dear hearers, dear Baptized into Christ, this Christmas, gaze upon God-in-the-flesh born and wrapped in swaddling cloths. Look upon those cloths and rejoice in them, knowing that your God has come to earth to die your death and rose again from death to give you everlasting life. He has accomplished your salvation, a prophecy He proclaims in those swaddling cloths, a prophecy which declares to you that you are forgiven for all of your sins.