Loving a newborn

When people interact with a newborn, they act in ways that are out of character for behaving in public. They will coo, make funny faces, and speak in baby talk regardless of who is around. They seem so absorbed in their relationship with the infant that nothing outside of that interaction seems significant.

When God wants to communicate his love in a tangible way he sends a baby. Everyone can approach an infant. Everyone. Mary and Joseph didn't have to say to every visitor "don't be afraid". Almost every other time God reaches out to human beings, the first words out of the mouth of a heavenly messenger is "Don't be afraid". That was the experience of the shepherds being told by the angels of the amazing birth. In dealing with a newborn, the only thing that I fear is that I could injure an infant in its frailty with my overpowering strength. Well that and spit up.

For me, the meaning of Christmas is that God is saying "let me try this another way so you don't cower whenever I fry to tell you how much I love you." "Let me try this another way so I don't have to warn people not to be afraid to be approached". God shows us through our holding an infant how he restrains his own power to destroy us in our frailty with his overwhelmimg power.

An infant who is also God, gives me the courage to approach God and hear his words of love by approaching and loving the little frail infant.