Baby God

“Where is your God now?” a more-familiar-than-desired voice taunts inside my head. 

“You’ve prayed for healing for six years, and now your wife is dying.”

I want to deny any share in the genesis of this intrusive sentiment, but if I were honest, I own more than I would like to admit.  Over the last six years of living with metastatic breast cancer, I have prayed/pled/bargained/begged/fasted/wept to seek healing for my beautiful bride.  Every new round of chemo, all those tantalizing natural cancer cure protocols, anointing services, prayers of the faithful, vegetable juice, vitamin C, turmeric, Turkey Tail – an endless list of reasons to hope that we would find the elusive key to make the cancer disappear.  I would be remiss to negate the blessings and miracles we have experienced along the way (for they have been sundry), but the fact remains that tonight my wife labors to breathe with the aid of an oxygen concentrator – home on hospice.

Where is the God of the miraculous when the missionary wife you have prayed for can’t lift her head off her pillow? 

My mind knows He is here with us, and in my heart I believe that a miraculous healing would not be hard for Him.  No harder than it is for me to flip a pancake or open a door.   But sometimes it feels as though I am alone.  That I am not tracking with Him.  That in this murky grief, I reach for Him, but falter.

I don’t think I would have recognized Him then, either.  Unless I was specially favored to be a shepherd or a wise man, I would have missed him.  That night when the Baby God was born. 

Gods are supposed to be powerful.  Thunder and lightning bolts, legions of angels, supernatural strength, and otherworldly domination.  The gods order their dominion with uncontested might to subdue any inkling of rebellion.

How could a transcendent Deity be a baby?  No wonder things aren’t working out for me - a Baby God can’t solve the problems of the world – He couldn’t heal cancer or bring justice on earth, or squelch rebellion and sin…?

I am not a baby person.  I was the baby of the family, and so all those other kids didn’t really matter as they were more like competition than anything important.  Shallena has always been the opposite.  Babies have always been her world.  I can remember time after time when she would say to me, “look at that baby over there, isn’t that bow cute?” or “did you see what that little boy did?”  I was almost always in the middle of a thought that went something like, “…uhh…what?...no…there’s a baby?” I wish now I had shared these moments with her.

I just didn’t get it.  Even when we had our own, my attitude was more like, “Hey, why does the baby get all the attention around here…?”

She loved them.  She looked deep in their eyes, interpreted their subtleties, and connected with them from the youngest of ages.  They had a power of attraction over her that she could not resist.   Their purity, simplicity, innocence, and love captivated her.  Their winsome smiles and laughter magnetized her affections and mobilized her assets.  Once we had our own, there was nothing she would not give to take care of that little life that had joined ours.

So, there He is – the Baby God of Christmas– wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Ignored by the bustle.  Worshiped and venerated by the heavenly and a few faithful earthlings.  Why did they worship?  Why did everybody else miss it? 

I have always associated God with power.  I want a God that can order the universe, establish the right, heal cancer, and solve the earthly and galactic problems with finality.  I suppose this is a perfect set up for why I sometimes struggle to find God in my pain.  I don’t want pain, and therefore God should remove it.  I want Him to resolve my pain and give me what I want.  If He doesn’t, then I don’t recognize Him around here.

But the Baby God of Christmas has a different approach.  “God with us” didn’t erase all the problems of the sin-ridden sod.  He was hunted as an infant.  He grew up in poverty.  He was homeless.  His food came from friends and strangers.  He rode on a borrowed donkey.  He was the victim of an unjust system.  He owned one piece of clothing.  He endured false accusations and lying testimony.  He was beaten for wrongs He did not commit.  He was cruelly executed after being declared innocent.

This beautiful, humble, childlike God lived a harmless life on earth in purity, simplicity, innocence, and love.  He didn’t reverse the general order of this world, but He did introduce the new order of His kingdom.

“Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Matthew 18:1

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Matthew 18:3-5

That’s where Jesus is!  He’s over there with those insignificant children.  Shallena was right all along.  While I was hopelessly lost in ascending the ranks of the important ones (much like the dear disciples in this story), she was intently studying the kingdom of the Baby God.  These little precious ones more closely approximate the divine than all my Zeus and Shiva lookalikes.  Instead of looking for a Deity that would solve all our problems, she was relishing the joy of the imminent Immanuel.

Now I wouldn’t want to suggest that the beautiful Baby “God with us” can’t solve our problems.  On the contrary, “God with us” is the solution to all our problems. Sometimes He works miracles in the here and now, and I have no doubt He could do that for Shallena tonight.  Sometimes He allows the pain and loss for a season.  But do not be deceived - the childlike kingdom of the God Baby we celebrate this Christmas is snowballing. This kind of pure love cannot be overcome, and though the gates of Hell rail against it – they only magnify the goodness of it!  He wasn’t just a baby born of a virgin, He is a Divine Savior.  He guaranteed His promise of eternal safety with the shedding of His own blood. The power of sin and death has been broken, the grave has no hold on those who trust Him. This kingdom of kids – the government of the gentle, designed and secured by that sweet Baby of Bethlehem will grow until it fills all heaven and earth - an unstoppable force of grace.  “God with us” marches forward despite our brokenness and loss. And very soon we will see the Christmas Baby coming in the clouds to take us home.  “Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.” Revelation 22:20.

The oxygen concentrator is still huffing and puffing.  Shallena is still struggling.

“Where is your God now?” 

He is with us.  And I love Him so much.