“You will meet Jesus in the trough…”
I heard the Lord speak these words to me. Admittedly the word “trough” isn’t readily in my working vocab so I had to look it up. “A long shallow often V-shaped receptacle for the drinking water or feed of domestic animals” as Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines the noun.
Advent is my favorite liturgical season of the church’s calendar. The anticipation makes the Second Coming of the Christ almost taste-able, so much more palpable. To wait for the birth of a child is most often so miraculous and joyful, at least if we can let our fears, our anxieties, and our sometimes deep pain, be mixed with the most natural of our predilections-which is to rejoice in new Life.
This leads me to the trough… a manger is a type of trough that is used inside the stable. Which, at least in the song “Away In A Manger,” is what is imagined that Mary laid baby Jesus to slumber (and cry) in on His first earth-side night. And although it may not be historically accurate (we don’t know for sure)-it’s telling of the Humble God that this might have been a relevant choice for His son’s resting place on that first eve.
I asked what He meant by, ‘You will meet Jesus in the trough…’ as I prepare for this Advent devotional season. I think there is a lot to learn and experience from that word, but one thing I think for sure is this lesson: knowing total surrender and sacrifice to God. Romans 12:1 (NIV) reads: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (emphasis mine). Jesus had just come directly from experiencing the mercy of the Father in heaven, and His first reaction, His first action, was to offer Himself-totally and completely, as a little baby… metaphorically laid in the trough of this world. Total kenosis. Total pouring out of His will, and His life, so that the life and will of the Father would be glorified on this earth.
Father, as we enter this Advent season would you teach us what it means to “empty” ourselves as Christ did when He, “although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men… humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8 NASB1995). Help us to meet Christ in the trough, on the Cross, and risen forever. Help us to continually lift up His name “which is above every name” until we all know Him fully. And may the Lamb of God receive the reward of His suffering. Amen.
Our Couch is Green 