This will be my first Christmas as a dad. Here is a picture of me sitting with my son. His name is Asher. It is a Hebrew name meaning ‘happiness’, ‘blessed’ – words that sum precisely how my wife and I felt when we discovered we were going to have a baby. We had tried to fall pregnant for a couple of years and were told it was unlikely we would have kids, but here we are – happy, blessed.
Asher is a little over 10 months old and his joyful character lives up to his name. He is a light and brings a lightness into our home and to everyone who meets him. But this week he has been uncharacteristically upset as his third tooth is trying desperately to break through the top gum. Teething, along with the leap he is going through, has mean sweet little Asher has been quite clingy this week.
Experiencing these moments of Asher’s young life, I cannot help but be overwhelmed; not at the natural course of his growth and development, but upon reflection of it all at this time of year.
God became a baby. A teething, clingy baby.
Christmas – the real meaning of Christmas – is the story of God entering the world in human history through the womb of a young woman. God became a baby. A teething, clingy baby. God. G.O.D. – “the infinite fullness of being, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, from whom all things come and upon whom all things depend for every moment of their existence, without whom nothing at all could exist”1 – that Being of beings became a babe, born in a cowshed in a rural hick town on the geographical and societal fringes of the known world. As long as I can remember this has bewildered me, but this year especially so. As a dad, I now find myself with thoughts and feelings I never knew I was capable of having for a drool bubbling bundle of joy who is so utterly dependent on his mummy and daddy for everything.
That Christians believe in a Saviour who subjected Himself to such helpless human state almost defies reason – almost, but not quite. Paradox is not the same as contradiction. In going beyond reason one is not necessarily going against reason, and I would submit to you that in the very inconceivability of the incarnation itself we have a seed in embryo that is reason to believe it is true. Would anyone make this up if they could? Could they make this up if they would?
Christmas is all about Jesus, the Christ: a baby born in Bethlehem, who grew in knowledge and stature, tearing down barriers between clergy and laity, sinners and saints, rich and poor, the healthy and the sick, the pure and the impure, the proud and the humble, the wise and the fool, law and grace. The act of God entering the world through a woman’s womb completely confounds the wisdom of this world with a simple message of hope for a people in need of redemption from sin and death. In Jesus, God identifies with humanity that humanity might identify with God in perfect harmony; God who is The Light and Life itself. To know God in Jesus is to know the reason you exist.
“Therefore… let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need…”
(Heb. 4:14-16)
“A King is born in Bethlehem
Our journey long, we seek the light
That leads to the hallowed manger ground
What fear we felt in the silent age
Four-hundred years can He be found
But broken by a baby’s cry
Rejoice in the hallowed manger ground
Emmanuel, Emmanuel
God incarnate, here to dwell…
The son of God, here born to bleed
A crown of thorns would pierce His brow
And we beheld this offering
Exalted now the King of kings
Praise God for the hallowed manger ground…“2
