As I alluded to in an earlier story (Perspective), I’m a new dad. My wife delivered a precious girl back in mid-November. Today on Christmas morning, we are nearing the 6-week mark. When I consider the Christmas story this year, I find new meaning with a fresh set of fatherly eyes. Having never cared for a newborn myself, I never appreciated what it really meant for God to actually enter this world as an infant, just like every single other human on the planet. When I hold my tiny daughter in my arms, the innocence, vulnerability and helplessness are overwhelming, and that’s just how our God chose to join us. Experience has made ineffably real what Sunday School could only describe in words.
For most of my summer weekends this year, my skiff sat on the trailer while my wife and I were preparing the nursery room in our house for our daughter’s arrival. We took great care in picking out the paint, assembling the crib, and buying all the other necessary newborn accoutrements. Still in the middle of a pandemic, we took baby classes with a nurse through Zoom. We were proud to be such well-prepared parents to provide a safe and supportive environment for our expectant daughter to thrive. Conversely, Baby Jesus blinked his eyes open in a horse trough in a dusty barn, not a well-staffed modern hospital that us millennial parents are used to. The Son of God, spiritual savior of humanity, next to the hay bales and manure pile. There’s a lesson in humility here that all the world could use.
I was brought up in the Episcopal Church, which I jokingly refer to as “diet Catholicism.” After splitting in the 1500s, we retained much of the Catholic liturgy and sacraments, but were more open to reform on a number of issues. To me, one striking difference was the degree to which Catholics revered Mother Mary. Catholics have cathedrals, universities, and a football play dedicated to her, and have anointed her atop all the other Saints, while in Episcopalianism, she merely appears in Bible stories and as a ceramic figure in my nativity set. I could never understand this adoration and veneration, until I watched my wife carry, deliver, and nurse our daughter. I’m now convinced there’s nothing more epic and heroic in this world than a mother. Mothers may not conform to our Hollywood image of macho fortitude and gallantry, but that’s only because they do their job with a mix of grace, humility, and dedication that goes unnoticed precisely because it’s so beautiful to watch. This Christmas, if you have a mother, thank her; if you are married to a mother, praise her; and if you are a mother, pat yourself on the back. Modern Christmas has become a lot of things, and there’s no reason why we can’t make room to honor mothers too, for without them, there’d be no Christmas.
Merry Christmas!
