Advent - The Baby

The story of Jesus’ birth is a very short story. Only Matthew and Luke’s Gospels record details. John declares that Jesus was the Word of God and he “became flesh”. Mark doesn’t refer to the childhood or origin of Jesus at all.

Luke’s Gospel gives us the most detail about the actual circumstances of Jesus’ birth, with Matthew adding in some other details not included by Luke. Matthew tells us of Joseph’s angelic dream, the visit of the Magi, or Three Wise Men, and the flight to, and return from, Egypt. The rest of the Christmas story comes from Luke.

Although both writers tell us about miraculous events surrounding the birth of Jesus, it seems clear that the birth of Jesus was a normal, natural, human birth.

Given that this was the arrival on Earth of the God who created the Universe - it was surprisingly normal. Why did God bother with making Mary pregnant, waiting for nine months, the hazards of childbirth itself, and then another 30 years of growing up, before Jesus’ ministry began?

Why didn’t God just become a fully adult person ready to begin his ministry? It would saved a lot of risk and waiting about.

But God didn’t take the easy way. He never has. After all, he has been waiting for 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years! (according to Hinshaw et al). What’s wrong with waiting another few months.

And as for risk - well actually God doesn’t need to worry about risk. God has the resources to ‘try’ as often as he likes! Just because we only know about the incarnation of God as Jesus doesn’t mean that he didn’t have any previous attempts.

But as it was, Jesus survived the hazards of birth, and of growing up, and accomplished his Mission, to Save the World. And the Early Church, who followed on with Jesus’ ministry, played their part too, in spreading the Gospel around the Globe.

But that makes me wonder - why did God choose that time, away back 2000 years ago, to come amongst us in Jesus? It was such a significant event that the whole world now counts its years from that momentous occasion (apart from a few groups that choose to run their calendars alongside the global calendar).

I agree that it was a good time - when the Roman Empire was nearing its maximum power and extent. Within a few tens of years the entire Empire had heard of Jesus Christ, although it was not until 312AD that Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and the Church became an officially recognised institution.

But wouldn’t today have been a better time?

In these days - when it seems that a fly gets indigestion in Timbuktu and the whole world hears about it in 5 minutes flat (well that’s maybe a slight exaggeration!).

But you know what I mean. Whenever anything of significance happens, the news media, and the internet, have their Breaking News headlines flashed all over the screens and the airwaves. In just a few hours everybody knows - unless they are unable or unwilling to engage with this news-rich culture that we live in.

But maybe that would be a disadvantage too. After all, Jesus had three years of team-building with his disciples before it came to Crunch-time. And then he had another 50 days before he Ascended and left them on their own (apart from the Holy Spirit - a not-inconsequential aide!).

In today’s news hungry age, Jesus’ ministry would have been plastered all over the front pages every time anything unusual happened. He would have been forced to the climax in weeks never mind years.

Look what happens to today’s self-proclaimed Messiah’s. I’d better not mention any by name - but you can probably think of a few of them. They are promoted, ridiculed, forced to justify themselves, and then ritually humiliated, and finally discredited and ignored. The whole process can be complete in just a few short months.

Politicians can suffer the same roller-coaster ride. And we have seen a few of them have their ups and downs. Barack Obama is currently on the up. But no-one is perfect, and his first slip-up will surely result in a massive down-slide - just as we have seen with Gordon Brown too.

So perhaps today’s time would not have been such a good time for the Messiah to arrive. After all, the Church is finding it hard enough to make it’s voice heard. And there are millions of us.

There was only one of Jesus, and a few tens or hundreds of his followers. They would have submerged in today’s culture. Just imagine if there was only one Church, and it had only 400 to 500 members, just like the Early Church. How would you have felt being a part of that group?

What would you do? What could you do?

It would be like starting all over again, wouldn’t it?
You would have to go back to the basics.
Basics with a capital ‘B’.

So as we think about that first Christmas Morning, and the arrival of a new baby, the baby Jesus, let’s think what our response is to that arrival.

Are we going to leave it to others to make the appropriate response? Or will we go out into the streets and shout it out loud - the way the Christmas Shepherds did, telling everyone they met. Or the way the Wise Men did - we have seen his star - and we have come to worship him - help us to find him.

Jesus was born in a stable, and laid in a manger. There was no room for him in the inn. There was no money for a hotel or a palace. It was just Mary, Joseph, and Jesus - and a kindly Father making sure everything turned out OK in the end.