Christmas Message, 2010

The Power of a Baby

“King Herod was deeply disturbed by their questions [about Jesus’ birth], and all Jerusalem was filled with rumors.” (Living Bible)

The more I think of the birth of Jesus, the more staggering it becomes. I am not now referring to the virgin birth—the miracle. I am referring to what theologians call the incarnation, that is, God becoming a man.

Think of it, the Almighty appearing on the earth as a helpless human baby; so consider the power of a baby. A newborn baby has an amazing capacity to attract attention and to become the focus of everyone in the room. A baby, who cannot yet speak, becomes the most important person in a room full of adults! All of us have seen how a baby provides a talking point and breaks down barriers of shyness and sadness, of silence and strangeness. Hardened men melt before a baby crib! Hearts are warmed before a little baby. People who share no common language become people who communicate as a baby is the focus.

Let’s try to grasp it—imagine God as a helpless baby unable to do more than wriggle and stare and make noises no one understands. Can you imagine the One who holds the stars in space needing to be fed and changed and even needing to be taught to walk or talk? To me that is staggering. God powerless, helpless, vulnerable! God able only to cry, to sleep, and to burp on his mother’s shoulder!  I admit I cannot fully grasp it.

Yes, the American churchman who once said, “The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable,” is totally right!

A wonderful thought came from a Catholic priest of long ago. Anthony of Padua said, “The Son came out from the Father to help us to come out from the world; He descended to us to enable us to ascend to Him.” Yes, Christ temporarily became what we are that He might eternally make us what He is.”

Yet think again of a baby—a baby is powerful in its powerlessness. Certainly with Jesus. Matthew and Luke, in their gospels, want us all to understand that this baby exercised immense power in His powerlessness. For example, He attracted people to worship Him (the wise men from the east), He motivated people to proclaim Him (the shepherds), and He even caused people to want to kill Him (Herod and his baby killers).

Matthew has these wise men saying, “Where is he who has been born king …?” (Matthew 2:1, 2)  This question opens up a fascinating subject for discussion. Notice, “born king” immediately; it is the subject of the promised Messiah.

At times during foreign occupation and enslavement the Jewish people had almost given up hope on the Old Testament promise. But not the truly faithful. The worse things became, the greater the heart-cry for the coming of a deliverer or a universal king.

I once ran across a poem written by a Roman poet named Virgil. He wrote the poem just about forty years before Jesus Christ was born. He longed for a special child to come to usher in a “glorious age.” Give attention to his words, “he will rule over a world made peaceful by the virtues of his father.” He, a pagan, writes of the destruction of evil, the horror of war, and a glorious time of faithfulness in the earth. And his final plea was, “Let such times come soon.” That’s the world’s heart-cry!

When this baby was born, He attracted wise men from the east, and they said, “We … have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2). When this baby was born, He caused a king to want to eliminate him. Herod was born in 73 BC according to Roman records. Can you imagine a man in his 70’s wanting to crush a baby! He was in power for thirty years; very wealthy, skilled as a politician, and excellent as an administrator but insecure as a king. He saw Jesus as a threat because he loved power. One translation says King Herod was “greatly perturbed” (verse 3 of chapter 2 of Matthew).

Even in his 70’s he was suspicious of any rival, and all possible successors to his throne, including his own sons Alexander and Aristobulus, must be eliminated. It is even reported that Caesar in Rome reacted to Herod’s murder of two of his own sons saying, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son!” And, even more, Herod had another son, Antipater. Herod had given written orders that when that son came to power after his own death, hundreds of Jewish leaders were to be executed as a safeguard to his son’s ascension to power! So think of it, a baby even brought to the forefront human cruelty and resentment—baby Jesus had that power.

There is a very interesting statement about this wicked man Herod. When he realized the wise men had not come back to reveal what they had discovered, in other words, “had tricked him, he flew into a rage” (Matthew 3:16, English Bible). Imagine that, a little baby making a powerful man go into an uncontrollable angry reaction. A fit of madness and blind rage!

When baby Jesus was born, the chief priests, who knew Old Testament scriptures backward and forward, were called before Herod to be asked, “What about this?” They showed total indifference and complete apathy. We must also remember that Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, was only ten miles from Jerusalem! The priests refused to travel that short distance to check out the story of the birth of Jesus. What is the lesson? Religion can blind spiritual eyes too just like rebellion. First it was indifference, but that produced outright rejection later when some of these same men cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Jesus in a sermon later said to them, “you refuse to come to me.”

Finally, when baby Jesus was born, these simple shepherds were stirred to tell the world. Let’s take a step back. Who were shepherds? It was often the work of the less intelligent people. There was nothing desirable or respectable about standing in open fields watching somebody’s sheep. It was the lowest paid work of social outcasts. In fact, shepherds were considered to be “ceremonially unclean,” that is, they could not even worship at the temple. Shepherds were rejects, outcasts, unclean, and intellectually slow people chosen to do a work no one else wanted to do.

Do you recall the words of Paul, “the folly of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God stronger than human strength” (I Corinthians 1:25, English Bible)? And then the most devastating statement follows, “Yet, to shame the wise, God has chosen what the world counts folly, and to shame what is strong, God has chosen what the world counts weakness. He chose things without rank or standing in the world, mere nothings to overthrow the existing order” (I Corinthians 1:27-28, English Bible).

But God chose the shepherds, and when they saw Jesus, He motivated them—they were the first evangelists. They represent ordinary people who joyfully received the good news and were thrilled to share it! They reacted “with haste” (Luke 2:16). They told everybody who would listen.

The baby Jesus drew foreigners to seek Him, frightened a ruler to want to get rid of Him, caused scoffing experts with their heads full of facts to ignore Him, and stirred peasant shepherds to declare Him to the world-at-large.

A baby did that! But it was a special baby—it was Jesus!

Never was God so vulnerable, and yet never had God been more powerful! Even at birth Jesus shook the world.

A baby attracted wise men, enraged a king, caused scoffing from religious intellectuals, and caused evangelism from mentally limited social reject commoners!

As so, today we see the exact same reaction to this babe born King! Think about that when there are all these efforts to change the name of the season and celebration. What’s new about it? Let us all realize, Jesus either disturbs the world or delivers it. He either creates a turmoil or causes it to be transformed.

We would be delighted for you to tell us what you think of this challenging message. Have a blessed Christmas.

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