Christmas Baby, Power, God, and Joy

It is Christmas time and I have been thinking about the babies. My wife is due on Good Friday, and the Christmas is about how God became incarnate as a human. More than just incarnate, God chose to reveal power as human baby. Seldom do we consider a baby as power because power tends to be tied to control. A baby has as much control as young pine has over an incoming avalanche. Baby must be fed, clothed and cared for, the very demarcation of what we mean by weakness. Yet, somehow, the Christmas story does distinguish power for us, and also shows our notions of power as control are a false idol. As I prepare for the coming of God as baby, I am also preparing for the coming of our baby. The picture comes from one of our ultrasound.

Our baby has already turn our lives from a self-direction toward the immanent arrival of the our other. Our lives have become one of anticipation, fear and above all joy. Our baby has made us alive. Along the way, we have to understand how little control we have. My wife tested positive in her quad screening, which raised our chances of Downs. We then waited as if on a weak branch of on old oak for our first level two ultrasound to see if there were any other markers of Downs. There was only one, a hole in the heart. A hole so large that it would not close on its own. Our baby would probably have surgery after birth. Our chances for Downs increased again. We were helpless, and we had to trust. We were weakness incarnate. No matter of worry could help. We prayed. Our Church prayed. Our community prayed. My wife continued to play with our baby. She patted on her tummy and our baby answered by kicking and patting back. Love formed. We had to meet a specialist and what we found:

Religion Practice and Forms of Attention
On learning the hole in the heart of our unborn child had healed

Rejoice for our God chose to be born of flesh
And become material. The power of our baby
I have seen in Ultrasounds, faces and maybe
in our God’s reflection in googoo and eyes afresh.

Pregnancy at Christmas has become an Abbey
Of faith for us as we prepare for the change
That a child brings. Modifications whose range,
Friends, family and others have let on in gabby

way, will permanently alter our lives and exchanges
Beyond anything our imaginations can reveal.
Yet from invitro, I have learned love does heal.
We have chosen to bring in life’s interchanges,

And the Word became a baby dwelt among us
Transforming our love and animating our dust.


God showed power as a baby. God revealed love. Christmas came early.