When we think of our personal prayers being answered, we often think of something big, something obvious and grand happening. Most people seek and keep watch for something appearing in the heavens, an outward sign. Something that screams to us, God is finally sending the answer.
It was no different directly prior to that very first Christmas. Roman rule was the most powerful and dominant on planet earth. They had made great advancements in travel, infrastructure and military might. Of course, simultaneously they were squeezing the poor and working class until they could no longer live. “Religion” was experiencing the now known dark ages. God had seemed silent for several centuries now. There were seemingly no prophets, no new religious texts, no voices of hope present. The common man and woman were desperate with an inner cry too deep and loud to actually be able to express with mere words alone. That cry was being heard in heaven though.
There were prophets of long ago who had penned that this humanity and eternity changing moment would happen. Yet maybe so much time had passed that the devoted had forgotten what they had read. Maybe it was so foolish and weak of an answer that they had brushed it off as something simply metaphorical. Maybe it just wasn’t the answer that they wanted. Again, humans love seeing the big and the obvious.
A newborn baby. The most weak, helpless and dependent of creatures that we all know. A baby has to be fed, changed and cared for by someone else. Without someone caring for a newborn, it can’t possibly survive. God certainly wouldn’t come to us in this form. He’d of course show up as a thirty-foot-tall angelic warrior.
Going forward, the baby eventually becomes a child. It has to be taught to walk, talk, use the potty and ride a bike. Children stay dependent on us to feed, clothe and house them. They literally can’t do any of these things on their own without parental or outward help.
As if this story we’ve been dissecting the past few weeks wasn’t strange enough. Here we are, it’s gotten even stranger. It’s no wonder that most people hurry past the Christmas manger scene on the way to Macy’s, Marshalls, Costco and their favorite bakery. To most it’s simply an ancient decoration that stems from a nice fairytale that someone thought up long ago. Oftentimes also looking past that our time system runs by the birth of this weak and helpless baby in the poor man’s manger.
While God can certainly answer us in the most outward and obvious ways possible. He often answers us in ways that are easy to miss from the untrained eye. This very first manger contained only a poor teenage couple and a newborn baby. Possibly a few animals and shepherds standing nearby as the baby lays in left over rags called swaddling clothes.
It’s a scene that was and still is easy to look past because of the lack of outward show. It’s easy to miss God’s answer when we are constantly on the lookout for something big and then bigger. But this helpless baby laying there was the One spoken of from centuries past. He is the One who is able to cleanse, change and heal the very depths of any human heart that will turn towards Him. He’s the One who gave over His own life that we may live in eternity with Him, forever.
He’s, by far, the greatest gift we’ve each ever been given.
“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
