In a telephone conversation with a high school principal years ago, we lamented aloud what it would finally take to get some awful parents to become more responsible. All too many parents treat their children as a distraction more than a privilege or divine blessing. Frankly, many school officials openly wonder if some children have parents at all!There was a great Anna Quindlen editorial in Newsweek magazine years ago entitled, In Search Of A Grown-Up. Quindlen was discussing a murder trial in which terrible parenting was suggested by the defense as contributing to the death of a young girl. Quindlen used the case to discuss some of the shallow parenting attitudes surfacing in our country. She said:
“...a curious attitude seems to have taken root among some modern parents. And that is that life with kids is just like life without kids, only with bunk beds. It is possible to have children and still work punishing hours. It is possible to have children and still have a [wicked] social life. It is possible to have children and still booze it up and do drugs, just as you did when you were young and single. It is possible, but it sure isn’t desirable. Having children changes everything...the moment that little cord gets cut with those little scissors, two little people have been turned into role models instantly, whether they like it or not. The center has shifted, from sleeping late and midnight movies to Saturday soccer games and those night terrors that lead to three people in the bed, two of them exhausted. Clean up your language. Clean up your act. Cut down on the business trips, the profanity and the beer because a child is now watching...having kids changes everything. Or at least it ought to.”
I completely agree. Having a baby changes everything; at least it ought to.
I’ll never forget the very cold winter day in 1987 when my life changed forever. On Valentine’s Day morning, Saturday, February 14th, I went to my boring, early morning graduate school class (ironically it was a labor relations class!), leaving a very pregnant Monica and her sister Leonor still sleeping in the apartment. As it was Valentine’s Day, I bought two roses for each of my sweet Ecuadorean ladies when I came home from class at noon. But when I came into the apartment with my simple Valentine’s Day greetings, I was abruptly welcomed home by Monica’s anxious sister who told me Monica was fully in labor and we should get to the hospital immediately. My precious roses were dumped on the table and off we went through an ice storm to Womack Army Hospital at Ft Bragg, North Carolina. Twenty-three unbelievably difficult hours later, Monica finally gave birth to Maria Gabriela Hanson, our oldest daughter.
I remember everything about that experience. I remember Monica falling completely asleep from exhaustion between her difficult contractions. I remember the mean Army nurses who made an already difficult situation worse. I remember asking really dumb questions, which seemed perfectly legitimate to me at the time. I remember Monica rambling away in Spanish about all sorts of different things without even realizing she was doing it.
I remember how perfect Maria looked even from the beginning. I remember being so pleased and proud we were getting to take home the pretty baby when everybody else on the ward got stuck with the dumpy kids. I remember holding her in my arms like terribly fragile crystal and kissing her little face over and over again. I remember trimming her tiny fingernails (so she wouldn’t scratch herself) and cutting one of them too close and making her cry.
I remember not wanting to leave my Monica and Maria in the hospital that night. I remember desperately wanting to take my girls home immediately. I remember wanting to run up the credit cards at Toys-R-Us buying baby stuff. I remember being terribly afraid we were going to do one thing wrong as parents and somehow ruin our little girl forever. I remember the wonderful, sporty, red pickup we thoughtlessly traded away for our first junky family car. I remember how hard it was for Monica to adjust to Maria’s almost constant feeding schedule; and I remember how voraciously our little Maria ate. I remember our first Christmas years later in Minnesota when our little Maria got dresses from everybody and she wore them all simultaneously! And I remember how happy she was when she got a new little sister to play with. I remember little baby Tesia fresh out of the bathtub trying unsuccessfully to walk in wet feet down the wooden hallway floor. I remember the time we strapped a huge dollhouse Grandpa made for the girls on the back of our tiny Dodge Colt and drove all the way back to North Carolina with this massive dollhouse tumor sticking out in back. I remember all of it.
I will never forget the birth of these little baby girls because their birthdays changed my life completely. Their birthdays took all my priorities, all my passions, all my dreams and held them up in the air and shook them until the junk and useless stuff fell away. Monica and I now spend money much differently. We spend our time differently. We are interested in different things. We make different friends. Two little February birthdays completely changed our lives.
Jesus’ birthday must do the very same thing. This baby changes everything! I truly wonder if most of us realize how very much it truly does. Quite honestly, sometimes I think many people attempt to do the same sloppy, irresponsible things as Christians some earthly parents attempt as parents. Too many people think being a Christian is like being whatever they were before, but with just a few religious bunk beds thrown in the spare bedroom.
Nothing could be further from the truth. This incredible birthday we choose to celebrate on cold, snowy December days changes everything in our lives. This Birthday Boy takes every part of our lives in His chubby hands, happily holds it all up in the air and radically shakes it until all the junk falls away. We can’t bring this Baby home with us and think life is supposed to go on as normal. Things just don’t work that way when this Baby truly enters our lives…
Open your Bibles this morning to the first chapter of John. Let’s look at some of the completely revolutionary changes this Baby Jesus brings home.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all people might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
This passage is one of the most theologically rich, fascinating passages in the entire Bible. The Apostle John packs into his Gospel, and especially this passage, almost everything we need to know about the changes this Baby brings. We could spend weeks discussing just the first verse! But I don’t want to do that this morning. I believe God wants us all to catch a simpler, more global Christmas glimpse of the changes this Baby Jesus brings into our lives.
So what are those revolutionary and exciting changes? I see four enormous ones.
Creation
The first change entering our lives is huge and wonderful. Somehow, this miracle Baby brings the very power of creation itself to play in our lives. John says “through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Even though I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t have a clue about the scientific particulars of all this, somehow this verse means Jesus Christ, second person of Trinity, is not only eternally God but creator God. John said Jesus was and is somehow the very means of creation itself. Now why do you suppose John thought this creative piece important to mention right at the beginning of his Gospel?
What difference does this new Creator relationship make?
I believe it means a real relationship with Jesus brings the power of creation itself very personally and particularly into our lives. Think about it. In theological terms, we say God created this world “ex nihilo” or out of nothing. And so when we hear John telling us here this Baby Jesus who has come to us was the means through which our world came into existence, we are actually saying we have now established a new and incredibly powerful relationship with the Creator and creation itself. We now have a personal relationship with the Creator – with the One able to make something wonderful, beautiful, precious, joyous and whole out of the nothing of my life! Wow! That is epic, almost inconceivable change.
Life
This Baby brings the very power of creation to bear in our lives. But even more importantly, this Baby brings us to life! This is the second change. John said: “in him was life.” The Bible says we were completely condemned, dead and rotting in our sins and this Baby Jesus we took home with us rescued us. We were trapped in the meaningless temporary. We were living uncreative, utterly powerless and dead lives with no evidence of the miraculous in view. And this Baby Jesus found us there, loved us, picked us up, breathed new life in us and is now still shaking all the death off us. He shakes the temporary, uncreative, powerless stuff out of us and brings us to life! We aren’t dead anymore; we have been resurrected with Jesus. This Christmas Baby isn’t some optional religious accessory we’re trying to politely add on to our lives; He is life itself!! We were dead and now we live! Our casket has been busted open…
If there is one facet of following Jesus I think many Christians misunderstand, it is this one. Although none of us would ever say it aloud, I think many of us often look and act as though our relationship with Jesus brings death and dying to us. Somehow, we give the false impression taking this Christmas Baby home with us means no more laughter, no more fun, no more wildness, no more fresh air or happy frivolity. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Jesus sets us free to live! We are resurrected! Jesus breathes air into our clogged up lungs and sets us free to joyously live and embrace life and possibility in a way we never could before! We were given life when we took this Baby home! We were dead and now we live!
Sight
This Christmas Baby we brought home opens our eyes to the life God offers us. That is the third way this Baby changes everything. “In him was life, and that life was the light of everyone.” The eternal, creative, wonderful life we’ve been given is the very light of the human race. When we bring this Christmas Baby home, we are not only reconnected to creation and brought to life; we also receive our sight. We receive light, sight and vision. Jesus turns on the light and clears away the darkness around us in a way we never could before. The veil in the Temple gets ripped apart and we get ushered into the Throneroom of the King to see and understand things we’ve never seen or understood before. Ideally, we become so completely filled with creativity and life that the Light of Christ shines out of us for all the world to see.
Do you feel you’re living in darkness? Is your life more characterized by a stumbling fog of unknowing and shadows than the well lit narrow path to life? Do you suppose that might be true of you simply because you haven’t been allowing the Light of Jesus to illuminate your life? You haven’t been reading and studying your Bible, spending quiet time listening to Him in prayer or allowing the Holy Spirit to make a way in the darkness for you? Jesus is your light!
Adoption
But perhaps the most important and eternal change this Baby brings into our lives is the final one. Jesus brings the very power of creation to us. Jesus gives us fullness of life beyond wild imagination. And Jesus illuminates our path and our world in a way nothing else can. But perhaps the most important, most sweeping, most sweet and precious change Jesus brings to us is adoption. Jesus is the means by which we can come home! Jesus is the means by which we are allowed to leave our broken, sin-plagued human family and become the very sons and daughters of God Himself. The Apostle John tells us in this passage that“...to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.”
I don’t just religiously accessorize my life at Christmas; I am reborn at Christmas! I am miraculously adopted into the very family and wonderful body of Christ. When I receive and fully embrace the changes this Baby Jesus brings into my life, God the merciful Father of all prodigals runs down the road, puts His arms around me, dresses me in the family robes, puts the signet ring of sonship on my finger and throws a “welcome home son” party for me!
This Baby changes everything! This Baby rearranges my spiritual DNA and gives me a whole new home and a whole new family!
Folks, we all have some obvious choices to make about how this Baby’s birth is going to change our lives. Are we going to pack away Jesus along with our Christmas decorations when we start cleaning up next week? Are we going to continue the utterly uncreative, lifeless, and lightless life we’ve been living? Or will we let this Baby wonderfully change everything?
May this Christmas Baby change everything in your life this year!
Amen.
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