What is fuss all about? It’s just a baby, or is it?
By Rick Church
God’s invasion of human history at Bethlehem both threatened the established order and at the same time, promised deliverance for those who were powerless. The birth of Jesus was anything but a benign, sweet story. It began a spiritual and social upheaval that continues today.
Nothing can change one’s life like the birth of a baby. If one doubts the truth of the foregoing statement, simply ask the mother or father of a newborn.
First, a newborn changes the parents’ sleeping schedules. Then, the newborn changes the parent’s mobility and forces lifestyle changes. As the child grows, financial priorities start to change along with the way decisions are made in the family. Ultimately, after the birth of the first child, everything is seen from a different perspective. In fact, people can completely change because of the birth of their children.
The other day I entered my home and immediately knew there was a difference. I heard the cooing of our two-week-old grandchild. Later, that would become the unmistakable cry of a newborn. My wife’s daughter Erica was visiting with her little daughter Brynn.
Over the course of the afternoon, I noticed how everyone changed to accommodate the baby. That little child had us at her beck and call, and, we were happy to oblige. Brynn had an affect on our teenage daughters and on our 12-year-old. Even the dog noticed a difference and was relegated to unhappily stay on the outside looking in.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He must have been seen as small, powerless, sweet and non-threatening. In fact, for many, the birth of the Christ-child was the most threatening event ever to occur. For others, Christ’s birth was the greatest event ever to occur. This dichotomy remains true even today.
Biblical scholars tell us that the Magi – Gentile astrologers probably from Babylon—who dabbled in astronomy, philosophy, diplomacy and religion, recognized that the “King of the Jews” had been born. Through an unlikely mixture of pagan and religious wisdom literature, these representatives of a royal court wanted to pay homage to a new king. Almost immediately King Herod, the one who held the title: “King of the Jews”, (albeit illegitimately – he was a Idumean/Nabatean by bloodline, installed as a vassal king by Roman authorities) believed the birth of Jesus threatened his power. From the start, Jesus began to challenge the status quo.
While Herod became nervous and anxious about the birth of the Christ-child, the angels proclaimed that the people now had a savior! The birth of Christ inspired passion and worship for some but was met with fear, defensiveness and outrage by those who had something to lose. “When King Herod heard this (the birth of Jesus) he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.” (Matthew 2:3.) Herod wanted to eliminate the child who was seen to have a claim on his throne and he would go to any length to do it. The Bible recounts the effort of Herod to inquire of the chief priests and teachers of the law to determine where the Christ was to be born. Then, Herod tried to trick the Magi into leading him to the Christ-child. Outwitted by the Magi and angered, Herod ordered the death of the boys in Bethlehem two years old and younger.
When I was growing up the birth of Christ was most often seen in positive, glowing, almost warm and fuzzy terms. The Catholic Church in my town had a plastic Jesus in a manger and I remember curiously watching Catholic worshippers kissing the Jesus doll when I was visiting the church with Catholic relatives at Christmas. This was new to me, a Protestant. In the thoughts of a pragmatic child, I remembered thinking: “Don’t they know that is not Jesus?” Even so, I thought it was a quaint and harmless ritual, although I secretly wondered if my parents and my pastor would see kissing a doll in church to be silly at the least and maybe even idolatrous at the worst. As I matured I began to respect and honor the devotion exhibited by those Catholic believers, even though it is not the way I worship. In any event, in those childhood years, everyone – from Catholic to Pentecostal to Baptist to religious, to spiritual, to secular people—seemed to accept Christmas as Christ’s birth and Jesus as Good News, not bad news. No one appeared to be outraged.
Not so today. We seem to be experiencing the range of reactions common to the type that happened when Jesus was born. Many have become riled at Jesus again. The polite opposition carefully tries to insert “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” in an attempt to distance themselves from anything so personal, specific, direct and clear as “Merry Christmas.” The reason? Not to offend. But the reaction doesn’t stop there. In a recent issue, Time magazine devoted its main story to “God vs. Science”. In the article, some scientists were described as reacting with “unprecedented outrage at the perceived insults to research and rationality ranging from the alleged influence of the Christian right on the Bush Administration science policy to the fanatic faith of the 9/11 terrorists to intelligent design’s ongoing claims. Some are radicalized enough to publicly pick an ancient scab: the idea that science and religion, far from being complementary responses to the unknown, are at udder odds—or, as Yale psychologist Paul Bloom has written bluntly, ‘Religion and science will always clash.’” (Time, Nov. 13, 2006).
There are articulate voices on both sides of the debate. The scientist recognized for his pioneering work on the Human Genome and who is a Christian, Francis Collins, speaks convincingly of seeing God as the source of all that is in his study of the human genome. On the directly opposite end of the spectrum, Oxford professor Richard Dawkins believes close reading of physical evidence should lead toward atheism. Many books, mostly touting the victory of science over belief in God, are currently flooding the bookstores.
From leaving the word “Christmas” out of our greeting to “unprecedented outrage”, Jesus seems to be stirring the world up again. Nothing can change your life like the birth of a baby – and nothing can change the world like the birth of the Christ-child.
God’s invasion of human history at Bethlehem both threatened the established order and at the same time, promised deliverance for those who were powerless. The birth of Jesus was anything but a benign, sweet story. It began a spiritual and social upheaval that continues today.
My hope is that we would all pause and reflect as to what the fuss is all about. And, if we dare to believe that Jesus is who the Bible said He is, did what the Bible said He would do, and cares for us like the Bible says He does, then we will experience more than just the cold, vinyl texture of kissing a plastic doll, or the threatened fear and anger of one whose intellectual beliefs are challenged by miracle. We will experience our own miracle: the re-birth of the hope-giving joy of the birth of a Savior and our lives will be changed forever for the better.
