what child is this?

this is early to be writing something that's loosely christmas-themed, but i don't much feel like being in the present, anyway. i've been thinking about the birth of Jesus. even though the birth probably took place in the spring, and pretty much everything about our whole nativity-schema is historically incorrect, this time of year makes me think about it. (what i'm writing works under the belief that Jesus is the Messiah, which is what the nativity assumes as well. it's not about the theology behind that particular idea.)


i just wrote an essay on the movie children of men. there's a line in w.h. auden's poem "musee des beaux artes" that talks about suffering, and that the aged are "reverently, passionately waiting / For the miraculous birth". i kept thinking about this line while i watched the film. it's brilliant, especially if you're a fan of neitzsche, but there are also undeniable parallels between the hopelessness of the world painted out in the film, its redemption resting on the birth of one child, and the story of the birth of Christ. my professor posed a question before we screened the film, "what hope do children bring when things look very, very bleak?"
in the movie, jasper says to kee, "your baby is the miracle the whole world has been waiting for."

there are so many characteristics of birth that are beautiful and contain hope for us, beyond the mystery of its biology. there is that limitless potential (keirkegaard wrote about possibility never disappointing us), there is a revival of imagination, there is the pure joy of bubbling, high-pitched laughter, there is "faith put into practice" (as children of men describes it) and the magnificence of something so small, a cell, becoming a perfectly shaped human being.

children captivate us. but why did Jesus have to be a child? think beyond the necessary fulfillment of prophecies, such as Isaiah's that Immanuel would be concieved by a virgin, and the Son of Man needing to be born of man, just like the rest of us. there are some other bible stories about children, too. remember when abraham couldn't have a son, yet he was promised descendants as numerous as the twitching white dots in the canopy of the night sky? then there was a miraculous birth. remember when people had to put blood on their doors when they were slaves in egypt, or their first born child would be killed? the blood connection between parents and their children is the epitome of the beautiful human connection, the linkage between everyone in our flawed and glorious race, and helps us understand how God feels about us (having created us and everything). still, though, think beyond all of that. why a baby?

there is a kind of hope that only children bring. the birth of Jesus reminded us of what a miracle birth is in the first place. he didn't just walk out of the dust like Adam, his first breath being the breath of God. Jesus had to go through the gory, bloody birth that every child does, that your future children will come out of, that you came out of. hope makes us alive, and the limitless potential of a newborn baby is as pure as hope can come to us. mary and the divinely appointed few who knew the secret of this child's identity waited with held breath to see his life stretch out. they watched the messiah king come from humble yet miraculous birth and turn the world on its head with his upside-down heirarchy of servanthood and martyrdom and love. Jesus taught meekness, and the need to learn about God and His Kingdom and to be curious about its mysteries. He said to receive the kingdom of God like a child, and he was a child once, so he really can say that, he knew what it implied.