Some of you who read this will know exactly what I am talking about when I say that a grandchild has quite an effect on a person! For me it began small but in a matter of months if she’s in the room I can let a Western Burger get cold, a cup of delicious Starbucks coffee go unnoticed and here’s the kicker, if she spits up on a $60.00 Brooks Brothers tie, who cares! I tell you, I’ve got it bad! It all becomes glaringly apparent on Christmas morning though. We were blessed this year to have our sweet little granddaughter with us on Christmas morning and though everyone in the house had presents with tags bearing their names on them, yet the coffee got cold and the gifts remained unopened. Nothing mattered, but the baby! It was then I said to myself…It’s all about the baby!
As I pondered that phrase for a few seconds I realized, that it’s really true of Christmas! This season, this day, and this story we celebrate, the Christmas story… its all about the baby! Ask the shepherds, they could tell you. They probably would have described in great detail the angels appearing to them as they watched their flocks. The amazing message and the heavenly music would have been the topic of many a conversation throughout the remainder of their lifetimes, but at some point as they shared the events of that night with family and friends they would have gotten to the baby, oh the baby. The moment they beheld him, the scene when they arrived at the manger. Everything is easily eclipsed by the baby. You could ask the magi. Ask them about the moment they first saw the star in the east, ask them about the royal treatment they received in the palace of Herod the king, they may even share the excitement of the moment they drew near to the small town of Bethlehem. They would gladly share the story but at some point their words would focus on the moment they saw the baby. They had witnessed much in their travels but nothing to compare to the Christ Child. Oh but can you just imagine the first glimpse of the Messiah by Mary and Joseph? They of all people knew that he was truly God’s son. Promised to Mary in her meeting with Gabriel and confirmed to Joseph in a dream. But that moment they saw him. That first moment they saw the baby. God’s promise fulfilled, God’s dream come true, and mankind’s greatest hope laying there looking into their eyes. The wonderful and joyous truth is that promise is still real, the hope is still alive and those eyes are still looking.
The Promise has come to pass. In his book, Science Speaks, Peter Stoner applies the modern science of probability to just eight prophecies regarding Christ. He says, "The chance that any man might have ...fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in 10 to the 17th. That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.” (one hundred quadrillion) Stoner suggests that "we take 10 to the 17th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state 2 feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly... Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up [that one marked silver dollar.] What chance would he have of getting the right one?" Stoner concludes, "Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man...providing they wrote them in their own wisdom." Hey, in a day where we hear the words billion and trillion bantered about without hesitation, quadrillion is a bit staggering! But that’s what God does when he keeps His promise. What is impossible with man is possible with God! And though it is staggering and overwhelming for the world to comprehend it is true!
Not only is the promise still true, but hope is still alive! George Bernard Shaw is perhaps most renowned as a free thinker and liberal philosopher. In his last writings we read, "The science to which I pinned my faith is bankrupt. Its counsels, which should have established the millennium, led, instead, directly to the suicide of Europe. I believed them once. In their name I helped to destroy the faith of millions of worshippers in the temples of a thousand creeds. And now they look at me and witness the great tragedy of an atheist who has lost his faith." You see friend because of the baby it doesn’t have to be so. We have His promise and we can experience His Hope. G.K. Chesterton once said, “Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all...As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” Lastly those eyes are still looking. Though many have forgotten or perhaps have never been taught, Jesus still looks their way. Though many have tried to deny his existence or defeat His purpose He still casts a watchful gaze. You see, that is why He came. For me and for you, for the seeking and for the satisfied, for the rich and for the poor he watches and longs for each of His creation to experience Him. Himself, the baby, the gift of God given to a needy and searching world. It really is all about the baby you see. If you miss the baby you miss Him. So as the paper is cleaned up and the decorations are put away, as the resolutions are considered and the weight is lost, and as the world gets back into a normal kind of swing may we never forget and may our lives always reflect the truth…that it is all about the baby!
Comments