Lest we forget…He was a baby!

He didn’t arrive fully grown.  He didn’t just step out into the world.  We are reminded, especially at this time of year that Jesus was born in a manger in a the little hamlet of Bethlehem – some five miles south of Jerusalem.  We were given a Savior as a new-born baby.  Part of the mystery of this story is that God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1).  Most people, I believe, still struggle with this simple little fact of life – God became man!

I watched my grand-daughter the other day as she played.  She will be two years old (Lord how time flies) in January.  She was lining up her dolls and playing with them.  She took postcards from a magazine and laid them on the floor and called it her “book”.   She was imagining.  Her small world was growing.  I remember the boys playing army in the house.  We would rearrange the furniture (while Kim was at out of the house) and drape sheets over the couch and chair.  We would build fortresses that all the cosmic powers of the world couldn’t penetrate!   We shot the enemy down.  We took captives.  We imagined.  We played as though life was real to us. 

Somehow I imagine Jesus had to grow up in much the same way.  His world would was held under the stronghold of Roman rule.  Life was different, dark and complicated for His family.  His father owned a carpenter shop and His mother more than likely was a “stay at home mom”  who may have engaged in baking bread for extra income.  He played life.  He must have.  Surely He did because after all…we somehow want Him to be like us, our children and our children’s children.  Surely He mastered the art of manipulating His mother by his tears.  He was wet and needed his diaper changed.  He was hungry.  He wanted to be held, rocked or cradled in his mother’s arms.  Surely he was like the rest of the boys who lived to make noise and take dominion over most of what they confronted – isn’t that the nature of a boy/man?  God created man in His image and commanded him to take dominion.  Ever since then man has attempted to find out who he is by his nature of dominion.  Some survive and others do not.

Back to the baby.  What did Mary and Joseph do when he sat up for the first time?  Who did they tell when He mastered becoming a pilgrim of the small abode they called home and began crawling placed he had not yet discovered?  Where did he go when he finally honed down this thing called walking?  Who did he mention first – Momma or Dada?  So many questions and so few answers.  It’s as though this part of his life was not supposed to be exposed to the world.  God somehow kept it under wraps.  We don’t see much of him after the dedication in the temple.  We see him next as he slips away from the caravan and takes up debate with the scholars in the temple.  Mary and Joseph put out an Amber Alert for him and finally discover him about his Father’s business.  Can you imagine what dinner was like that evening at the Joseph household?

This baby.  This baby named Jesus.  This child who was God among us.  Today two things crossed my mind.  First of all, some things about our family structure, events, occasions, etc. are to be kept private.  Those early years of Christ weren’t broadcast for the world to see.  We don’t really know what happened to Joseph.  We speculate.  We assume but no one really knows.  Life for the family of Christ was kept under wraps.  James, the half-brother of Christ must have been a handful because he didn’t believe Jesus was the Christ until after the resurrection.  Powerful dynamics that more than likely led to more than one argument at the dinner table or in the bunk beds in the boy’s room.  Life is complicated for all of us.  All of us.  Not just a few of us.   There are things that only the family should know.  In an age of social networks are we exposing too much about our private lives?  Are we sharing too much information about our children?  Are we posting pictures that maybe shouldn’t be?  Making remarks we shouldn’t make?  Just a thought because God invented the first social network – it’s called the Holy Bible.  In it He purposefully kept out the secrets of the childhood of baby Jesus.  Maybe we should do as Mary did – ponder some things in our hearts and not on the internet.  Just a thought.

Second thing is that Jesus grew up to be a man.  His mother was proud of him.  He worked with his dad in the “shop.”  But when He stepped out into adulthood -she let him.  As a parent of two outstanding young men I remember the days when we had to cut the cord and let them go.  Not easy but necessary.  We had to let them make mistakes, miscalculate life issues, discover pain as independent individuals, become life counselors and not necessarily parental advisors.  Mary let Jesus go.  Off he went.  Performing miracles.  Raising the dead.  Healing.  Delivering people.  But Mary had pondered things in her heart.  She knew the day would come when this baby would grow up and…well, the rest is His-story. 

Sometimes letting go is hard.  Sometimes keeping things within the family structure can be difficult.  But Christ modeled family life for us all.  His gift was more than that of a Savior.  He modeled every day life for all of us.  Let’s follow His plan more closely in the future!