Swaddled

At Christmas Eve services around the world tonight, Christians will hear these words from the Gospel of Luke: "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." When I hear them tonight I will likely focus most on the word swaddling.

Until a few days ago I had never given the phrase “swaddling clothes” much thought. I assumed it was just another term for baby blanket. Weren't all babies wrapped in something warm soon after birth? It turns out the purpose of swaddling has as much to do with restriction of movement as warmth. A Wikipedia article states, "Swaddling clothes described in the Bible consisted of a cloth tied together by bandage-like strips. After an infant was born, the umbilical cord was cut and tied, and then the baby was washed with salt and oil, and wrapped with strips of cloth. These strips kept the newborn child warm and also ensured that the child's limbs would grow straight."

Swaddling went out of fashion in Europe about three centuries ago, although it is still practiced by some parents in some cultures, usually for less than the eight or nine months common in earlier times. I would think that swaddling would limit muscle development more than it would ensure straight limbs, but what do I know?

More recent translations of the Bible do not mention swaddling at all. In the New Internatonal Version, Mary just wraps her baby in cloths. In The Message it’s just a blanket. Perhaps the use of the word in the King James Version stems from the fact swaddling was still practiced in England at that time.

What prompted my attention to the practice of swaddling was the article “The Gift of Wrapping” by Jeff Peabody in the December issue of Christianity Today. “The conditions of his advent were a small metaphor for his entire life,” he writes. Consider what happened after Jesus died. He was anointed with oil and wrapped tightly in cloths and placed not in a manger but a tomb. And he died nailed to a cross. What could be more constricting than that? And yet, Peabody points out that as the Son of God, Jesus “experienced an unfathomable limitation of himself” his entire life. Perhaps the Resurrection was not just a victory over death but a victory over life itself.

This is a thought to ponder not just on Christmas Eve but on Christmas morning as I remove the wrappings from my gifts and set them free.