The God in the Cave

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. LUKE 2:7

The second part of The Everlasting Man opens, like the first, in a cave. Chesterton had begun the human story with the man in the cave, drawing pictures of animals on the walls. He began the story of Christ with the God in the cave — for an old tradition, going back to the early church, holds that the stable at Bethlehem was a cave in the hillside, of the kind in which the shepherds of that country still drove their cattle at night.

Where extremes meet

Chesterton found in the birth at Bethlehem a paradox so great that all the literature and art of Christendom had not exhausted it. The Creator of the universe had become a helpless baby. The hands that made the stars could not yet reach up to touch the faces of the animals around Him. In the chapter of The Everlasting Man called The God in the Cave he put it in a sentence that sums up the whole of it: “the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.” And: “Bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet.”

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. ISAIAH 9:6

The shepherds and the wise men

He then turned to the two groups of visitors who came to the manger. The shepherds, he said, stand for the common people of every land, who had made the myths and told the stories, and who had always longed for a God who would come near to them. The wise men from the east stand for the philosophers and the learned, who had searched the heavens for the meaning of things. Both found what they were looking for in the same place. The myths had dreamed of a god who came down among men; the philosophers had reasoned towards a God of truth; and here, in a cave, the dream and the reason met. Of the shepherds he wrote, in the same chapter: “The shepherds had found their Shepherd.”

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass. LUKE 2:15

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. MATTHEW 2:1

Danger at the manger

Chesterton insisted that the Christmas story is not merely sweet. There is something defiant in it. A king in Jerusalem heard of the birth and sent soldiers to murder the children of Bethlehem, and the holy family fled by night into Egypt. The child in the cave was born into a world that wanted Him dead, and from the very first the powers of the earth recognised Him as a threat. Christmas, for Chesterton, was a feast of joy, but also of vigilance and of battle: the opening of a war that would end at the cross and the empty tomb.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under. MATTHEW 2:16

Weighing it

This is one of the loveliest chapters Chesterton wrote, and it faithfully celebrates the central wonder of the faith: that the Word was made flesh. Evangelical readers will receive it with joy.

A small note may be added. The cave at Bethlehem is an ancient tradition, and a probable one, but the Gospels speak only of a manger and do not say where it stood. Chesterton built a great deal on the image, and he did so knowingly, as a poet; the reader should enjoy the image without mistaking it for Scripture. More importantly, in this part of the book Chesterton writes, as a Catholic, with a warm devotion to the mother of Christ that goes beyond what the New Testament says of her. Evangelicals honour Mary as the one whom all generations call blessed, and as a model of faith and obedience; they do not pray to her or ascribe to her the place that Roman Catholic devotion gives. The wonder of Bethlehem is the Child.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. JOHN 1:14

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Luke 2:1–20 slowly, and try to see it as if for the first time.

2. Consider the paradox of the incarnation: the Creator as a baby. Spend time in worship before it.

3. Are you more like the shepherds or the wise men in the way you come to Christ — by simple longing, or by searching thought? Thank God that both find Him.

4. Read Matthew 2 and notice how the danger and the glory of Christmas belong together.

5. Read the chapter of The Everlasting Man called The God in the Cave, in the Ochorus library.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, You made the sun and stars, and You lay as a baby in a manger.

I worship You, the Word made flesh, born in poverty and hunted from Your cradle.

Thank You that the longings of the simple and the searchings of the wise both find their end in You.

Come to me as You came to the shepherds, and let me go away glorifying and praising God for all that I have heard and seen. Amen.