It’s the first Monday in Advent, the beginning of a new church year.  Here we are preparing for the greatest beginning of all – the birth of a baby in Bethlehem, a baby that would change the world.

Think about the babies that arrive here and now.  These babies might not change the world, but surely they change the lives of their family.  Nothing is ever the same after parents welcome a newborn.  They look into the eyes of their child, so new, so innocent.  What will he become?  What life will he lead?  There are so many hopes, so many dreams.

When I think about the birth of Jesus, I tend to get caught up in the peripheral story:  innkeeper, sheep, cattle, stars, shepherds, stable.   But today I’d like to focus on the baby, that newborn very human baby, still unaffected by the world around him.   I’d like to see those little eyes, that sweet little mouth.  I’d like to see him as new in every way, for it is only in that newness, that fresh start, that change came into our world.  Our heavenly Father knew what lay ahead, but in the manger lay an innocent baby, the beginning of God’s wondrous plan.

“Come as a baby weak and poor, to bring all hearts together.”*

Judy

From the hymn “Awake! Awake! And Greet the New Morn,” Text by Marty Haugen b. 1950, Music “Rejoice, Rejoice”