This panel depicts the Christmas story, as described in Luke 2. In a humble manger, Mary and Joseph worship the newborn Christ, swaddled in cloth and surrounded by crumbling walls and cattle. Although scholars continue to debate the meaning of “manger” (it can also mean an upper room), this depiction is common in the Christian tradition. Also described in Luke 2, the background story shows an angel telling simple shepherds about the birth of the messiah.

Two New Testament passages accompany the image, each emphasizing the vulnerability and simplicity of Christ’s way of life as foreshadowed in his humble birth. The first, from Luke 9, is Jesus saying the Son of Man has no place to rest his head. The second passage is from 2 Corinthians 8:9, in which Paul connected Christ’s poverty with generosity among Christians: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”