Why a baby?
The soft smooth skin, piercing cries, eyes squinting shut, curled up in a ball form of human life takes our breath away. That moment when a round woman suddenly becomes a woman and a suckling baby, when arms cradle new life bundled close to the heart-it’s a miracle. Tears prick the eyes of the toughest of men and even strangers stop to stare at this newborn innocence. The helpless, desperately needy form cries out in the confusion of being thrust into the glaring lights of a cold world. So we wrap up tight, swaddle close and rock to soften the harshness of the new world.
People like to see babies, they ooh and aah over the sweetness of tiny toes and little swirls of hair. This is why we find the nativity scene still prominently displayed in an increasingly secular world. It’s a sweet picture of a harmless looking baby with his mother, surrounded by the childhood favorites of farm animals.
When we see new life, we feel hope. That child has a future, unknown dreams, no hardships to overcome, or pain to heal. Babies contain the hope of a fresh start and the vision for a new future. Mothers rocking their children imagine them as doctors, helping others, firemen, being heroic, or just future friends to share life with. Their hopes are placed into a new person who won’t have their inadequacies to overcome or their hardships in life.
Jesus didn’t come to live an easy life though-the hope we find from this babe comes from an entirely different life purpose. In all that innocence wrapped in a blanket, there was a purpose for something bigger. In the baby Jesus, we have the hope of a new life within. He brings us a hope that we can have a new life….inside of us and that we can start fresh wherever we are.
We miss the point when we keep Jesus as that helpless baby, because the hope He brings comes not from His sweet curled up form in a manger, but in His powerful presence on the cross. Jesus came to bring us hope-in a powerful way. Hope for change in our human nature, hope that we can become who we were meant to be and hope for a future beyond this world.
I’m so thankful for that hope.
