Jesus birth was amazing, unpretentious . . .
and very secret.

The wise men had to search.
They found the Holy Infant only with
the help of the star shining on His coming. 

Jesus came hidden.
In the midst of simple lives,
He entered unknown.

Born in an obscure place:
Bethlehem, small town, small importance.
Born in a cave,
He was made to lie in the humblest of cradles,
a trough from which the flocks ate.

He was welcomed by few,
ignored by most,
unknown by the masses,
rejected by the those who should have known Him.
Even as an infant,
assaulted by those in political power.

He was hidden but could not be concealed.
Emmanuel's entry shook the world while He
lay helpless in infant form,
yet so very holy that
all the unholy rose in opposition.

The religious did not believe He came
though they knew the prophecies.
And they never sought to discover Him.
They had no questions for the Magi.

The governor, drunk with power,
set out to kill Him
with a crazed recklessness
that took the lives of innocent boys.

Foreigners believed and came.
A few astonished shepherds visited.

Yet . . .
Even in the stable Jesus effected
the splitting of the world and time.

One side of the split saw in Him, unutterable glory,
the hope of their need, the end of their despair.
The other half saw Him as the demise of their power,
the enemy of their ambition,
a threat to their position and god-ness.

Matt. 10:34
Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth;
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
I have come to divide . . . .

Even His hidden coming as an infant
brought the sword of division, not by His "doing" -
as infant He could "DO" nothing,
but ever by His simple but spectacular "Being." 

This is the real story.
Will we receive this Babe as He is?
Controversial . . . yet holy.
Evoking violence . . . but innocent.

Not by His effort or participation,
simply being God,
His birth was invasive and shocking.
It upended all who were aware of it.
Of those few who knew,
every destiny was fixed in its course
simply by His arrival. 

The world was shaken by His presence
before ever He spoke or walked or thought.
He interrupted human degradation
and altered the history mankind was
fond of destroying.

In the cradle, He was God . . .
with all the human opposition to Him,
placed beside the human need for Him.

We have missed the aspect of His coming
that was radical then and typical still.
It is ever and always this:
when Jesus comes there enters a perfect glory
that is at once, redemptive and destructive.

His appearance uproots your roots and
shatters your gods.

The Baby was God.
and so there is an inevitable upheaval
and . . . an inescapable violence.

The Baby Son is anathema to the human nature
in its native hostility to God.

He is the Only Viable Enemy of His enemy, Hatred
and His presence can never remain hidden,
because the demons know Him as God,
even if humanity does not.

And His real presence, even today, is known by hell . . .
attacked with no less fury than Herod,
(surrogate of satan).
and his murder of the innocent,
all that which is "the potential child."

We dust-people who "prefer the darkness"
are invaded at our core and splayed in our existence
by His birth into our sphere.
If not, His true coming is not yet real enough.
Christmas is future . . .

When we can celebrate this,
the real story, in all its parts,
by all its shocking drama,
then do we celebrate . . .
Jesus' birth into history and
into my soul's story.

Celebrate Him!
Celebrate by remembering,
by comprehending
Jesus' wonderful invasion into history
with angelic hosts and glory
and the other side . . .
the immediate human tragedy of His rejection,
the rising of evil to eliminate Him. 

This is full and stark remembrance:
the looming shadow of the cross
over the little stone cradle.

Murder claimed Him right from birth but
He was indestructible, quenchless, untouchable.

Transcendent even as an infant,
He began His life as He would ever live it,
in the posture of God's 'Child,'
vulnerable as ever humanity is,
yet calmly resting in His
Father's hand. 

His power as God, His position as Only Begotten,
though a typical newborn, shook the world
in spite of His wordless Being . . .

Even in that lowly barn-cave,
wearing the humble robe of common humanity,
He was Very God and as such,
awesome, majestic and terrible.

May we rekindle the marvel that He came and
the amazement that He is God!!

        The Baby God!

Copyright © 2005 Martha Kilpatrick