The Power of a Baby

What is it about a baby that has us melting in minutes? Babies have a special kind of power. Family conflicts can be healed; broken relationships can be mended when a baby is born. A cold formal atmosphere can change when a baby is brought into a room - or a church! I have seen people who seem hard, closed and sad grow gentle and break into a smile when a baby kicks its feet or claps its hands in pure joy.

It is not our normal idea of power. We think of power built on military or economic might. In addition, for thousands of years before the first Christmas, it was that kind of power and might that the righteous people of Israel (not all of them!) expected from their longed for Messiah and liberator. Imagine the amazement and disbelief when the long awaited Almighty God of Creation turns up as a delighted baby sucking on his mother’s breast - or on his toes!

The God of all time and space is a little babe in nappies surrounded by smelly sheep and cattle dung. After 2,000 years, we still have not grasped it! We continue to miss the meaning, the raw meaning of Christmas. We so clean up our cribs, with sparkling lights and golden straw (we’d install central heating if we could!) that we miss the mess becoming human really was and is. When God became human, it was the real thing and it’s wasn’t always a pretty sight in either his coming or his going. In these coming days, we need to plan some quiet time to absorb the wonder and mystery of it all!

When loving couples have a baby, they become as weak and open to hurt as the baby of their love. Their lives are changed forever. They can never be the same again because they are forever linked with another precious life. They open themselves to new joy and new pain because joy and pain always go together.

At birth, there is first pain and then joy and throughout life, pain and joy are inseparable. When we open our lives to love and to loving, we seem to be getting weaker (and some part of us doesn’t like it) but it the weakness of God in becoming human. And that is stronger than what we call strength.

So, in the next few precious days, let’s make some quiet time to gaze on the babe in the crib. Plan it in or it won’t happen! And, as we gaze, let all hard thoughts and imagined strength melt way as we accept and enjoy being weak and human as Jesus was. This Christmas, enjoy and share in the power of this special baby!