Hay is for horses and cows and mules and more! Livestock animals eat grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants for daily sustenance. This fodder has changed through the years, but harvesting hay dates as far back as the mid-1800s.

Straw dates back to Exodus when the Egyptians required the Israelites to mix it with mud for building. Judges and 1 Kings mention straw for the animals and Isaiah prophecies that carnivores, like lions, will eat straw during the Millennial Reign. Hay is mentioned in Proverbs, Isaiah, and 1 Corinthians. Because of this, I believe it’s safe to assume animals surrounding Jesus’ birth ate hay. This is why we place hay in the manger during our Nativity dramas. One thing surrounding the Nativity is certain, Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger-a feeding trough for animals.   

Much surrounds Jesus’ birth celebrating the awe of God Himself coming to earth, in the flesh, through His beloved and only Son Jesus. God, who created the universe and rules with all power and authority, chose the humble birth of Jesus to likely take place in animal quarters. No room in the inn, Mary and Joseph may have made the best of a straw-filled room with a manger for Jesus’ bed. This bed would have been made of hay and dried mud. This stone-like structure seems an unlikely place for the newborn king to lay his sweet head, but it was the chosen place for baby Jesus.

Jesus traded the splendor of Heaven for an earthly residence for thirty-three years. For His three years of migrating ministry, He had nowhere to lay his head. Jesus spent his time walking from town to town to heal the sick, raise the dead, and feed the hungry. All-night prayer and all-day movement consumed His last three years. I wonder if He, like Jacob of old, often lay upon a pillow of stone. Nothing about Jesus’ life on earth, especially his scourging and crucifixion, would have been comfortable.

When we lay down on our cozy mattresses each night may we remember Jesus’ bed of stone that first Christmas night. As our heads hit our soft pillow may we remember our Savior who left the comforts of Heaven to experience the discomforts of earth living. He came to show Himself to humanity as the loving, humble, Savior that He is to all who believe.

And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Matthew 8:20