Why as a Baby, a Christmas Message

Why as a Baby, a Christmas Message
By Rev. Robert P. Elkins
All Scripture verse taken from the NIV Bible unless otherwise noted
Luke 2:6
“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.”

Have you ever wondered why God chose to come to earth incarnate, to be human flesh and blood and bone, just like you and I? If God is the God of all creation, if God is the God that created everything that was ever created in the entire universe, and he must be since we are told just that in the Bible and we find it in (John 1:1-3) for it says; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men”. If the God of this creation can speak anything and everything into existence from nothing at all, if he can speak into existence anything he wants. If the God of all Creation can speak but a word and call something into existence whenever he wants, and again, from nothing, no formal matter, no molecules, not an atom of anything. Just say it and it’s there! If this wonderful and all-powerful God can just say the thing or object he desires and miraculously it appears! Why then did this deity of such awesome power and control use the form of a simple little baby, a helpless human child, to bring salvation to all mankind, to bring salvation to all that repent of their sins and their sinful lifestyle. Why did this God of creation select the form of a baby to come into the world?

The Jewish world of that time was waiting for “Messiah”; they were waiting for “The Christ”, to deliver them out of the chains of bondage from the mighty Roman Empire. They were in bondage to Rome as they had been to so many other empires in their past and they were waiting once again for deliverance, they were waiting for salvation and a warrior king. Make no mistake about it; the Jews knew the word of God. It was embedded in their very nature; it was as much a part of their culture as water and air were a part of their life. It was taught to the children from the moment of their birth, it was a daily religious habit that they kept. The Jews knew Torah, they studied the law, and they knew the Septuagint. They read and studied the writings of the prophets, they knew not only the history of their nation, but the prophecy that promised them a Messiah that would come to lead them from the grasp of their oppression.

Wouldn’t it have been easier for God to send his Son, to send Messiah, as a man? Wouldn’t it have been easier to send a full-grown adult being, a full-grown warrior, a leader, and a king? Wouldn’t it have been much more effective to have Jesus arrive on earth as a full-grown man and just appear in the temple of Jerusalem, just from nowhere appear from behind the massive curtain? To have Jesus just appear in kingly robes and step out from behind the curtain that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. If Jesus had just appeared from nowhere and stepped out from behind the curtain and into the temple where the people knew no one could go except the High Priest, and that only once a year on the day of Atonement or else it meant certain death. Friend, I am sure that would have gotten the peoples attention far more than the birth of a small common child born to simple parents! If Jesus had just come in this fashion as an adult man with a band of heavenly hosts playing trumpets and singing Hosanna to the King, my friend that would have really gotten the attention of the people. There would be no way the priests or Pharisee would have or could have rejected Jesus for anything except for who he was had he arrived in this way. If Jesus had just came and stepped out from behind that curtain no one would have ever denied his kingship or authority. If Jesus had just appeared unannounced in the temple could the priests deny his kingship and say that this isn’t the Messiah we have been waiting for so all this many long years? If Jesus had arrived with the High Priest as his witness, every man, woman and child in all of Israel would have to acknowledge, beyond a question of any doubt, that Jesus was truly Messiah and was there in all his heavenly glory for all to see. And if God had selected Jesus to arrive in this manner, wouldn’t he have saved not only the lives of all the little boys that the evil King Herod ordered slaughtered and thus stopped even more pain and suffering on his people Israel? This vile king tried to circumvent the will of God and it cost many innocent baby boys their lives. If Jesus had come as a full-grown king wouldn’t this tragedy have been avoided? O beloved how history would have been changed if Jesus had only come in his full adult state and displayed his full deity to all the people.

And here then my friend lie the crux of this scenario. Had Jesus come in any form or fashion other than as a child, a helpless little baby, had Jesus come to earth as anything other than a baby, born to a human mother, all Scripture would be a lie. All the prophecies foretelling his arrival would be wrong, every word of Scripture would be a lie and all would be subject to error. Had Jesus come in any fashion other than a baby the prophecy of Isaiah 40 concerning John the Baptist would have been false. There would have been no truth in the words John the Baptist spoke, prophesized by Isaiah, preparing the way in the wilderness because the preparations would not have been needed had Jesus just “arrived”. Had Jesus arrived on earth, as anything other than a baby the prophecy of Isaiah as that found in chapter 9 would have been useless. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a child is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The might God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”. The prophecy foretold that Messiah, Christ, had to be a child, had to be an infant, a baby. And so we are back to the title of this sermon. Why a baby?

If we are looking for this God/man King called Wonderful, Counselor. If we are looking for this Prince of Peace and Everlasting Father, is this what we envision when we see a newborn baby? I don’t know about anyone else but when I see a newborn baby all I see is one so small and helpless, so dependent upon it’s parents that without those parents care and protection, with-in a matter of days or even hours, that child would die depending on the circumstances surrounding the child at any given time or place. When I see a baby I see a helpless bundle of life that can in no way defend it’s self against anything at all or against any of the evils that roam this evil world. Granted when I see a baby I know that that child, being the smallest in the home is in total control of that home and that every other person in that home has their life revolve around the schedule of that baby, Amen? And yet God chose this very pattern of life to be the vehicle he would use to come to earth, to bring deliverance and salvation to all men and be our King.
And so again we ask. Why a baby? And then we look to the Word of God and in his divine revelation he tells us the reasoning or answer to this question. Jesus came as a baby to meet every requirement of Scripture, and to meet every requirement of man. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus experienced every feeling that is common to man. That Jesus experienced every sensation that is common to man, and that he experienced every temptation that is common to man.

As a baby, Jesus had to know and experience soiled diapers and to nurse at his mother’s breast. He had to do this to experience what it was and could then relate to every infant child for all eternity because the needs of every child, regardless of where that child is born are the same. The needs of every child are identical regardless of the race, religion, or custom the child is born into. A baby born in the outback of Australia has the same basic needs as a child born on the ice packs of the Arctic. The finer details of childcare may change from location to location and place to place. Regardless of the environment the child is born into the basic needs will always be the same, be it in the ghetto’s of South Los Angles or the palaces of Palm Springs. They need food when they are hungry, they need sleep when they are tired, they need to be touched and held and loved and it doesn’t change from child to child. If you take a child born into wealth and place it in a crib and never pick it up or hold it and show it love other than to feed it or clean it. It’s going to develop a sense of rejection and have a mental state that will have a permanent negative effect on that child and this will follow that child for it’s entire life. Self-esteem will be low and a life of problems will follow. If you have a child that is born in a poor but loving home where it can be fed and cared for but also where it’s held and loved and cuddled on a regular basis that child will adjust far better than the child of wealth but neglect of attention. Every child has basic needs of love and attention and every child needs to be held and kissed and loved.

Jesus had to experience the care and love of a mother and father; he had to experience the growing process. He had to experience falling when he was learning to walk, he had to experience scraps and scratches and have his boo boos kissed by a loving mother. He needed to experience exhaustion while playing as a child or while working along side his earthly father, Joseph, as a young man. He had to be able to relate to each and every phase of life and growth that a child goes through so that he could minister to all the children and young people in the world. He had to experience their pains, their cares and their concerns. He needed to be able to relate to learning how to talk and count and develop table manners and politeness just as every child needs to learn these things. That’s why Jesus had to start as a child that’s why Jesus had to start as a baby. That’s why Jesus had to follow the same journey through life as every child does.
And if you think Jesus came with full knowledge of all these things that every child needs to learn … look at the Scriptures, he didn’t! Remember when he stayed behind at the temple at 12 years of age? What did he tell his earthly parents? “Didn’t you know I would be in my Fathers house?” Does this sound like your every day teenager or what? You can’t find your child for a few hours and then they come wandering in late and not caring at all that you’ve been going nuts, and what do they say? What excuse do they have for their being late or missing? “Didn’t you know I’d be at my friends house?” This is what Jesus did to his parents. Look at the book of Hebrews, it says in chapter 5 “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” Jesus prayed and cried and shed tears, just like us. But he also learned obedience from what he suffered, he learned from his experiences, he learned as any other child learns, and any other person learns. Jesus had to experience learning just like we do; he had to learn just like each of us has to learn from our own personal life experiences.

Have you ever given any thought as to why the ministry of Jesus didn’t start until he was 33 years old? Have you ever wondered why Jesus didn’t start his ministry life until he was at an age when he was well into his adult years? It was so that he would grow in life and in experience, so that he could experience everything we all experience in our lives. Jesus had to learn to work with his hands; he had to grow from a child to a young teen to a young man to a full adult. And through every stage of his life he was learning to be a man, a person with every care, concern and feeling we each have. It was through these “hidden years” the years between the age of 12 and 33 that Jesus learned to be a full man. He learned the trade of a carpenter from his earthly father Joseph, he learned what it was like to earn his daily needs by the sweat of his brow, what it was like to have sore aching muscles at the end of the day. This is why Jesus knows how to minister to everyone that works for a living.

If we study the Scriptures we’ll see that Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father isn’t mentioned again after the time in the temple when Jesus was 12. We don’t know for sure as to why but I’d feel safe to say that Joseph had passed on by the time Jesus started his ministry years. Remember the words of our Lord when he was talking to his beloved disciple and his mother from the cross in regards to his mother and her future care. He said to his mother; “Woman, behold thy son” and to the disciple, John he said; “Behold thy mother”. Since we know Jesus had brothers and sisters it would be safe to say that with Jesus being the oldest child, and because of the customs of the day, he most likely had experienced the responsibility of providing for his family after the passing of his earthly father. Tradition and custom mandated that the eldest son, that being Jesus, took over the headship of the family when the patriarch passed away. Jesus would have had to accept the responsibilities of being the breadwinner for the family. And thus he would have had to experience the full range of emotions and concerns that came with this responsibility. What he learned prepared him to minister to every family.

By reaching the age of 33 years, Jesus passed through childhood, through those early learning years. Jesus passed through puberty; he experienced the changes that a body goes through. He experienced the transformation to adulthood, always learning and gaining in knowledge and understanding. He watched his friends from childhood grow as well, he saw childhood friends grow to adulthood, enter marriage and have children. And yes I’m sure he even experienced the draws or desires to take a wife and experience the intimacy of love. If this shocks you look at the Scriptures. (Hebrews 4:15) says; “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.” And that “every temptation” means just that, he was tempted by all the same things that each of us has been tempted by. And that must include something like love and marriage. Yet he didn’t yield to the temptation and he didn’t sin either.

The Scriptures are very clear in regards to this; there is no hidden thing laced in there. Jesus was tempted by it all, as a businessman he knew the temptation to make a quick profit through shoddy workmanship, he was a carpenter. But I’m sure he was an honest carpenter, an honest businessman. I’m sure Jesus was tempted to over indulge in strong drink at a party. Look at the wedding at Canaan. Do the math if you want, six 30-gallon jugs of water, that becomes 180 gallons of the finest wine ever made. Now that’s a party, that’s a temptation. There is nothing wrong in being tempted, our Lord was tempted, … often … it’s what we do with the temptation. (James 1:13) “When tempted no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.”
Yes my friend Jesus was tempted as we are, he experienced all that we experience, he knew fatigue, he knew hunger, he laughed, he thirsted and he got angry. He perspired, he cried and he knew pain. He bled, he suffered and he died. And that beloved is why Jesus came to earth as a baby. That is why he didn’t come as a full-grown man, that is why he didn’t come as a warrior king and that is why he didn’t come in kingly robes. He experienced what he did, and how he did, so that he could minister to every one of us today. He experienced what he did so that he could minister to us right where we are, right where we hurt and he has experienced that hurt with us, he knows and understands what that hurt is.

But why did he do this you may ask? He did it for two reasons. First, he did it to reveal God to us. In all that Jesus did, in all that Jesus experienced, he showed us a God that loves his children. And how you may ask could he show us God’s love? He did it by and through the power of the Holy Spirit that was bestowed upon him at his baptism in the Jordan River when his cousin John baptized him. And this same Holy Spirit, this same third person of the Trinity that came to rest upon Jesus at the time of his baptism. Jesus promised him to be with us as well, for right now, today as well as yesterday and tomorrow. And indeed he, the Holy Spirit, did come in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. Throughout Jesus’ entire ministry on earth Jesus was revealing God and God’s love to us by divine revelation and that divine revelation continues to flow to us today through the Bible and through the Holy Spirit. We can see a revealed God by looking at the life of Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit in every aspect of that life. We can see that Jesus was indeed tempted but it was the power of the Spirit that assisted him to not yield to that temptation, and that same Spirit power is ours today as well.

Jesus said; “If you have seen me you’ve seen the Father.” If we develop a close and personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we develop a close and personal relationship with the Father as well. It is impossible to separate the Father from the Son, just as it is impossible to separate the Holy Spirit from the Father or the Son. In the epistle (1st John 5:7) in the KJV it says; “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.” And it is in and through the development of this intimate and personal relationship between Our Lord Jesus and man that the love of God is revealed. If we look at the oldest covenant between man and established and anointed by God, that being the marriage covenant, we can get a slight grasp of how this works. A couple, and in my mind that means a man and a woman and nothing else, Amen. A couple can know each other since childhood, may have dated for years, it may seem like they’ve been friends forever. But until they actually get married and live with one another for a while, until they become intimate, knowing every detail about the other person, they cannot truly understand the inner most complexities of their mate. As God, with the majestic Godliness of Jesus, he set aside his deity and became flesh and blood man to fully understand and know all of our complexities. And he did this so that he could love us more. He did this so that we could know God more. He did this much as the married couple, he needed to live with us and experience a man’s life from a man’s perspective. Jesus set aside his deity and walked among men to show the Fathers love and to show the Father. Much like our imaginary couple, Jesus came to have an intimate relationship with us not only so that he could experience man more but also so that man could experience and understand God more and know God’s love more.

The second reason Jesus took on our humanity was so that he could share in our suffering and pain. So that he could connect with us in our times of hurt and difficulties. Let there be no doubt, even for the strongest Christian, even for the most Spirit filled, faith filled Christian, life is still filled with pain and sorrow, suffering and hurt. At times this is a direct result of our actions even if they were filled with the best of intentions. And then again the pain comes from outside influences, from the actions of others that we come in contact with. It’s the Holy Spirit dwelling in us that mandates how we deal with these hurts, it’s the Holy Spirit’s guidance that tells us how we are to respond to these painful circumstances.

The death of a loved one hurts the Christian as much as it hurts the non-Christian. And Jesus understood that pain. It’s not recorded in the Gospel accounts but I have no doubt that when his earthly father, the man who raised him and taught him his trade, as a carpenter died Jesus grieved. I’m sure Jesus grieved just like you and I do whenever he lost a loved one or close friend. It is recorded in the Gospel accounts that when Jesus heard of the death of his cousin, John, he went off by himself and cried and grieved. And when he heard of the death of his dear friend Lazarus, again he wept. For you Bible buffs, you most likely know the shortest verse in the Bible. It’s two words, “He wept” found in (John 11:35).

The early years of Jesus’ life, between 12 and 33 as previously stated aren’t recorded but I think by looking at the recorded ministry of Jesus we can see a glimpse of his life. Jesus healed the sick countless times. Why? Because as a child he experienced sickness, he experienced all the sniffles and child illnesses of man; Jesus has shared our hurt. When people were hungry Jesus fed them. Why? Because he knew hunger, Jesus fasted for 40 days, he knew hunger, Jesus has shared our hurt. Jesus knew the pain of having a close friend betray him. Jesus and Judas had to be very close, Jesus trusted Judas with the finances of his ministry. Jesus has shared our hurt. Peter, one of Jesus’ inner circles of friends, Peter denied Jesus three times. If we read the account of the denial in the book of Luke we see that at the time of the third denial Jesus even turned and looked straight at Peter. Peter was with Jesus from the very beginning of his ministry years and yet when there was a real trial Peter abandoned him, one of his closest friends rejected him and broke his heart. Jesus has shared our hurt. In the garden Jesus grieved over a hard decision, to the point that he sweat drops of blood. We have all had terribly hard decisions to make in life, have we not? He has shared our hurt. He was whipped and beaten, his skin was torn off the bone, his blood flowed freely through the nail holes, and he suffered pain like most of us who have ever suffered and he died in the past. He has shared our hurt.

And so you see my friend, Jesus had to come as a child, he had to come as a baby. He had to grow as any child grows. He had to know the full range of our human pain; he had to know the full range our human emotions. He had to know the full range of our human endurance and the full range of our human limits. He had to know all these things so that when we come to him today with all of our pains and sufferings, when we come to him with all of our problems and illnesses he can say; “I know your pain, I know your suffering, I know your concern, I know your emotions and I know how you feel”.

Jesus came as a baby and he died as a man just so that he could say to each of us here today; “The same Holy Spirit that was with me at the time I walked this earth is still here today and He is here to lift you up from the cares and concerns you may have and to assist you through any problem you may have. My Holy Spirit that I gave at Pentecost is as alive now as he was then, he is here to be your counselor and your comforter”.

And so as we prepare to celebrate the birth of this Jesus, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of this special Holy baby that came so long ago we now know why Jesus came as a baby. We now know why he entered this earth as man and paved a way for us and all we can say is “Thank you Lord, thank you for the gift you gave so long ago. Thank you for your birth, for your death and for your love.”
Grace & peace