“And this is the sign to you, You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.”
And how would this babe be known? By the sign that God had given. That is, by the fact that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. This was no accident. It was prearranged. Strange identification for the arrival of the Lord Messiah, and even more so for the Son of the Most High. But it was so. The One Who holds all things together (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3), was Himself held together in swaddling clothes. And it was very apt for shepherds as His lying in a manger revealed the baby as associated with their kind of work. He lay in a manger where animals would feed, and was thus revealed as One who had come to the meek and lowly. They would have felt very much at home.