During Advent this year I read through the book of Luke. But rather than stop and focus on Luke 2 where the birth of Jesus is celebrated, I slowed my pace as I reached Luke 22 and 23, where the suffering and the death of Jesus is recorded.
In the movie Talladega Nights (which I am NOT endorsing), the main character, Ricky, prays over the family meal the evening before he competes in a car race: “Dear Tiny Jesus, in your golden fleece diapers with your tiny, little fat balled up fists...Look, I like the baby version the best, do you hear me?”
Although Ricky’s prayer to baby Jesus is hilarious, I think the words actually encapsulate the way so many of us think. We love to focus on Christ’s birth with all the excitement and joy of that moment, but we must remember, baby Jesus grew up. His infant sweetness was swallowed up in his agonizing surrender. His newborn cries for his mother were drowned out by a desperate cry for his Father not to forsake him. His soft baby skin, once pink and perfect, was torn and pierced for our transgressions. The breath, which caused his small chest to rise and fall, ceased on a cross at Calvary.
It is good and right that we celebrate the birth of Jesus. God broke into history, clothed himself with flesh and laid down his crown for a cradle. Jesus lived in our world! He loved his mama, played with his siblings, worked with his earthly father until his back hurt from bending over the workbench. He felt and dreamed and laughed and cried. He was human in all of its essence and God in all of his glory.
When we celebrate Christmas only by looking at Advent, we miss the unbelievable reality that Christ lived–for 33 years–perfectly in righteousness so he could die perfectly for our sin. The “baby version Jesus” started his life being laid in a manger of hay but ended it being laid in a tomb of stone. But he didn’t stay there. He defeated death so we could have life.
If we focus on Jesus' birth without pondering Jesus' death, and resurrection, we miss the gut punch of the gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus was a baby. Jesus was a man. And Jesus is a Savior who willingly died in our place. When we believe in him, we get the gift of life eternal! It’s free!
But it wasn’t free for him: the sweet baby in the manger at Christmas grew to be the suffering Savior on the cross at Calvary. Thank God for his wonderful Gift.
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