Why a Baby?

(Each year while I was the Director at CEFOntario I prepared a special Christmas letter, as a ministry to those who were involved in CEF's work.  A few years ago I wrote the following letter, titled "Why a Baby?".  For me it's one of my favourite things I've ever written, and generated a lot of response.  I'd like to share it with you this Christmas.  I hope it will be a blessing to you.)

What comes to your mind when you hear the word Christmas?   Do you have a mental picture of family opening gifts around the Christmas tree or singing carols by the piano or sitting around a table sharing favourite Christmas treats?  For most of us the word Christmas invokes warm memories of loved family traditions.  As Christians our thoughts almost certainly include images of Mary and Joseph, along with a contingent of angels and shepherds and wise men on camels.  And of course central to all is a baby in a manger.  That baby is what it’s all about.  But have you ever wondered, why a baby? 

If the planning had been left to me I might have had Jesus appear on the scene as a fully grown man.  Maybe he would simply walk out of the wilderness one day as a mature thirty year old ready to begin his ministry of teaching and healing and sacrifice.  Imagine the impact.  Instead of someone everyone knew from a child, who had grown up among them, a mysterious figure with no known background comes out of nowhere to heal sick people and calm storms and raise the dead?  It certainly would have made for a different kind of Christmas.

But God didn’t choose to have his Son appear out of the mist like an alien or a miracle working hero in a Hollywood movie.  In God’s plan Jesus came the way humans do, as a helpless infant.  Not only that, he came to a poor family in the most humble of circumstances.  No royal family, no wealth or rank or privilege.  For other than a few people God spoke to especially, the baby named Jesus appeared to be an ordinary child at best.  Who would come up with a plan like this?  Certainly I wouldn’t.  But this was God’s way.

I’ve learned that God doesn’t do anything without good reason, so I’ve been pondering this question - why did Jesus come as a baby?  Is it so we can have a really cool looking nativity scene under the Christmas tree?  Is it so we can get together and sing heartwarming carols about a night filled with wondrous miracles?  Did God come up with this plan so children could re-enact the Christmas story complete with a donkey, a gruff innkeeper in a bathrobe, and a stable filled with cardboard livestock?  I love Christmas and all the traditions that spring from the birth of baby Jesus in the stable, but I have to think there’s more to it than that.  I’m left with the question, why a baby?

Students of theology may come up with something deeper, but personally I’ve settled on an answer that works for me.  It’s a profound truth, and while it may not be new to you, for me it gives Christmas a wonderful dimension I haven’t considered enough.  I think Jesus came as a baby - to a poor family - in the most humble of circumstances - because part of God’s plan to save me was to experience what it was like to be me. 

Just think of it.  Though he didn’t have to do it, Jesus chose to place himself in a little human body that would grow up suffering skinned knees and toothaches and stuffy noses and bumped heads.  Part of his plan was to experience what I feel when facing fears and hurts and temptations.  He wanted to know firsthand what it was like for me in times of discouragement or uncertainty, or when I’ve been misunderstood.  He grew up and lived life as a human being to know the highs and lows I can go through, to experience the complexities that arise in my relationships, and to know what it’s like to be hungry or in pain.  He wanted to live the life I live.

That’s what the baby in the manger tells me.  The baby assures me God is not just some distant super being, but a God who is close, who can understand what I feel and how I feel.  That tiny child wrapped in swaddling clothes in a smelly old barn reminds me that the Son of God was tempted and hurt and afraid and discouraged – just like me.

Could God have done it some other way?  I think so.  I’m pretty sure He could have had a perfect adult Jesus suddenly appear on the scene and sacrifice himself for my sin and yours.  But for me both the sacrifice and the love it represents are somehow magnified when I think how God deliberately put himself in the place where he could grow up experiencing what it means to be me.  I don’t pretend to really grasp all it meant for God to become a human being, but I do understand this.  The magnitude of that sacrifice says in great big bold letters that GOD LOVES ME!

It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to celebrate Christmas without the baby in the manger.  It’s hard to picture being without the angels and wise men and shining stars.  Along with our family traditions, these are the things that make Christmas feel like Christmas.  But as we enter this Christmas season I think I’ll look at that baby in the nativity scene with a new appreciation.  He’ll be more than part of the Christmas tradition.  He’ll be God saying to me, “I don’t just love you.  I understand you.”

Until that remarkable night in Bethlehem God was God, man was man, and the only bridge was a set of laws I couldn’t possibly follow.  The birth of a baby changed all that.  That baby, the Jesus I serve, knows me and empathizes with me and pours out his grace toward me.  Thank you God for the baby in the manger!

May the Lord Jesus who lived his life for us, and then gave it for us, be close to you and yours during this Christmas season.

Rob Lukings