Rocking Baby Jesus

Photo by Greyson Joralemon

This year the Christmas season seemed to take me down rather than build me up.  December was a tough month for many reasons.  On top of the usual wrapping presents, stamping Christmas cards, attending parties craziness, we had some added challenges.  A close relative had emergency surgery, I had two different versions of the flu, and my children experienced this flu in the form of a tummy bug after a birthday party. 

I tried to focus on the meaning of the season, I really did. I read my Advent devotional.  I listened to Christmas music.  I put up manger scenes around my house.  However, it just seemed a little harder this year to focus on its meaning.

The other day, however, I walked into my daughter's room and asked what she was doing.  My sweet three-year-old had her head bowed, her eyes gazing down at a little baby doll, which she was cradling in her arms.  "I'm rocking baby Jesus," she replied. 

The beauty of this moment stopped me in my tracks.  I stood there gazing at her for a few moments, taking it in. 

Rocking baby Jesus.  The meaning of Christmas hit me once again.  Jesus came down in human flesh.  As a babe.  Not some perfect, never-crying infant, but as a real, live baby.  One who screamed at his birth and wiggled around in his mother's arms.  One who needed milk and comfort and love. 

A baby who needed to be rocked.

What beauty there is in a God who willingly chooses to come down from Heaven to become a little baby.  A God who makes himself vulnerable and allows himself to be dressed and fed and taken care of by his new, young mother. 

A baby who needs to be rocked.

As the long, cold days of January stretch on, may we keep this babe in our arms.  May we remember to rock him close and gaze down at his beauty.  The beauty of Emmanuel, God with us.