For The Sixth Day Of Christmas: "Why Does God Come To Us As A Baby?"

Infants possess amazing power, but
without imposing control.

Seminary professor Ted Koontz, in an article entitled, “Why did God come to us as a baby?” made the point that while we see babies as helpless and weak, a baby in fact has significant power. For example, a baby can wake parents in the middle of the night from a deep sleep; a power many louder noises don’t have, and has the power to get them out of bed and respond to their needs when they would be willing to get up for few other reasons. 

Yet, he says, this cry of a baby is a power to which we can respond or choose not to. It can profoundly move us, but it’s at the same time a power which in no way robs us of our freedom. Some people might in fact be able to sleep on, oblivious to a baby’s cry. But there is something in our very natures that makes us want to respond. To refuse to do so would be to refuse to be who we know ourselves to be down deep. Something inside us knows that its the only right thing to do. 

So he says it is with the power of the cry of the divine. We can refuse it, block it out, but only at the cost of not being who we are most deeply. This cry, this “baby power,” is the kind God chooses at Christmas, a power that can be absolutely compelling and yet absolutely non-coercive. 

And that’s one of the ways the baby whose birth we celebrate this season truly deserves to be “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” A strange but most compelling kind of power.

(This is from a series of radio spots aired on three local stations by the Center where I work.)