I still have fond memories of taking pictures of Father Robert in San Antonio after his was ordained by Bishop John. But after the beautiful ordination service, I was asked to take more family pictures. Father Robert with all his brother priests, then with his parents and friends. However, what I would call the most stunning photo that I would print on a vocation flyer was the family portrait of Fr. Robert’s with his wife McKensie holding their 2 year old son JJ beaming with pride and what I also learned that mom was expecting another child in June. The young couple shared that they picked the name Emelle (pronounced “in-mell”) if it was a girl and no name yet for a boy.
As this young couple looks forward to the birth of another child. Christmas is God’s answer to our waiting, God’s response to the centuries of prayers that lay hidden in our groaning, in our sighs, our frustrations, each of them a plea, mostly silent, for a divine intervention, all of them asking God to come and rid the world of injustice and our hearts of loneliness and heartache. Something people around the world are all craving for: rid the world of injustice, war, deportation, loneliness and heartache of all kinds.
But God’s answer didn’t exactly meet our expectations even as it surpassed them. What was born with Jesus’ birth and what still lies seemingly helpless in mangers all around the world wasn’t exactly what the world expected.
What the world expected was a superstar, someone with real talent, sharpness, and raw muscle-power to out-gun everything that’s bad on this planet, someone charismatic enough to make everyone who opposes him slink away in defeat. it appears that’s exactly what some are expecting in our country today. However, what is God’s answer to that: A baby lying helpless in the straw!
Why?
Why would God choose to be born into the world in this way?
The power of God revealed in Christmas is the power of a baby, nothing more.
Because you can’t argue with a baby! Babies don’t try to compete, don’t stand up to you, don’t try to best you in an argument, and don’t try to impress you with their answers. Indeed, they can’t speak at all. And that is the Savior who was born in Bethlehem, and that is how God is still basically in the world. Like a baby.
God does not outgun anyone, out-muscle anyone, threaten anyone, or overpower anyone. The power of God revealed in Christmas is the power of a baby, nothing more, nothing less: innocence, gentleness, helplessness, a vulnerability that can soften hearts, invite in, have us hush our voices, teach us patience, and call forth what’s best in us.
But we have always been slow to understand this. We want our messiahs to possess more immediate power. And we are in good company here. The messiah that people longed for during all those centuries leading up to Jesus and Bethlehem was precisely conceived as a human superhero, someone like a power ninja someone with the earthly muscle to bang heads together and purge the world of evil by morally superior muscles.
But that’s not the Christmas story, nor the power revealed in it. An infant lying in the straw in Bethlehem didn’t outgun anyone. He just lay there, waiting for anyone good or bad to come to him, see his helplessness, feel a tug at his or her heart strings, and then gently try to coax a smile or a word out of him.
That’s still how God meets us.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we take a moment to really look at the infant at our manger at home or in our church. See his helplessness and then feel a tug at your heart that says you my chosen one and I love you.
