Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" John 8:12.
I've always known that Christmas is about Jesus being born, and usually I see him all clean and cute bundled up in blankets -and I am peering at him from a distance. But this Christmas I keep having this image of a baby dropped into my arms -a baby Jesus appearing in my arms as though I blinked while a stork flew overhead. It's a baby, and having been a peds nurse for sometime, I know how babies are: some cuter than others, but all of them very needy. The get hungry and wail and chew their blankets and if you pick them up they start wobbling their oversized heads about on their weak little necks in a helpless panic to find something to fill their bellies.
This is how Jesus came. And he probably wasn't even one of the super-cute babies. Strangely enough, he loves us and longs to be like this to us -to be as loved and needed as a newborn and its mother are to each other. I am learning this, slowly. And it seems that he wants me to take him, this Jesus, this baby dropped into my arms, and carry him out into the world and show him to people so that they can fall in love with him too. "This is your God," I would say, "this child is your hope and your promise that all is forgiven, that the creator longs to dwell with you."
I have grown up a Christian, but I have been jaded with the religiosity of Christianity. I want a lover, a savior, a friend -not a religion. Jesus is as humble and gentle as a baby, as joyful as a child, and he is the only one who will never disappoint me. If I could hand this baby Jesus to you I would. It makes no sense, but I know there are enough baby Jesus's for all of us. Take him, I can get more. I just have to open my arms and another one will fall from the sky.
