It happens every year. It's the typo that I make most often at this season of the year and the one that I notice most in other church bulletins during Christmas time. Instead of Away in a Manger, I invariably type Away in a Manager! No matter whether I use a typewriter, a word processor or a computer, 'manger' turns into 'manager.' Even Spellcheck can't catch it, since 'manager' is a word correctly spelled. I did it again this year as I put the midweek Advent bulletin together. Of course no one noticed it until we were to start the first service, even though the whole staff proofread it! They're not at fault, mind you; it's one of those invisible errors that never shows until it's reproduced on hundreds and thousands of copies!

A principal told me that someone in the school had made the same mistake a year or two ago. The typo was printed in the school annual and an irate parent called to complain about the unfortunate error: 'manager' instead of 'manger.' Imagine! They thought a school should be above making such mistakes -- and a Christian school at that!

But is it so unfortunate?

The safe bet is that the Sweet Little Child in Bethlehem's manger is also the magnificent Manager of life and eternity. The evangelist St. John does more than suggest the possibility. He says, "The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people" (John 1:1b-4). Away in Judea's manger was more than the cooing of an infant; it was a heaven-sent Manager who would distill life from death and joy from sorrow, a Holy Manager who would take on fully the frailties of a human body and dwell amidst the peculiarities of a finite world, and love us despite our unloveliness.

The truly intriguing aspect to me is to consider the Godhead in sacred conference long before there existed a universe, where Father, Son and Holy Spirit mapped their strategies and planned their tactics to rescue humanity from itself. We are fortunate, are we not, to have God-in-Christ as a benevolent, compassionate, caring Manager? It rings true every time we recite it: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16). Managing a universe is one thing, but to manage salvation for a sinful population is quite another. Still, Jesus, the tiny tyke in that modest manger, did more than manage it; He gave His life to assure it.

The infant Moses was placed in a cradle of reeds and sent sailing on the Nile to prevent his death by Pharaoh. The Baby Jesus was put in a manger to set sail for life and to manage death's conquest by conquering a more insidious ruler, Satan.