The Little Baby was the Savior of the World!

In Luke chapter 2; we see the Christmas story of Jesus as a baby:
Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. 2 This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all were proceeding to register for the census, everyone to his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5 in order to register, along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. 6 And it came about that while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her first-born son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-7 NASB)

Look at verse 7: “She gave birth.” Mary, a young girl, a virgin, a woman who had never had sexual relations with a man, gave birth. The conception was a miracle – but there is nothing here in the text to indicate that the birth was anything other than the normal process of labor.

Mary gave birth just as many of the women here this morning gave birth: her water broke, she began to have contractions, she felt overwhelmed by the process going on inside her body; her back hurt, there was pain and effort and sweat and pushing and stretching and burning – and then, finally, amazingly, this new little creature came forth from her body; a new creature covered with mucous and amniotic fluid and blood and vernix – hair (if any) plastered to his head, that head possibly misshapen from hours of pushing, his skin bluish in color until the first breath, and first cry.

Mary gave birth – and the baby, Jesus, came into this world just as you and I, through His mother’s strong efforts, bloody, slippery – and yet beautiful.

The point of all this? Jesus was a baby – a normal baby, born in the normal way. Jesus was really human. Jesus was a baby who soiled himself, spit up, cried when He was hungry; He was completely dependent upon his parents for meeting His every need. He could do nothing for himself. With His little hands, he grasped fingers held out to Him. He couldn’t communicate at first except by crying. He took months to learn to crawl, and more months to learn to walk, and to speak. Jesus was a normal, human baby.

Secondly, Jesus was born to a poor family in especially difficult circumstances. A teenaged girl and a young carpenter, struggling to protect the baby in the first days of His life.

And think of the humble circumstances of His birth. While I am sure Mary and Joseph did their best to make their newborn comfortable, safe, and clean, no stable is a sanitary place. How far were they from water? How did they clean Him up after the birth? What did that manger look like – that manger that for years had been the repository of grass and hay falling out of the mouths of cows?

Third, Jesus was born with the appearance of illegitimacy. Few believed Mary’s story of the angel Gabriel; surely most of those who saw her pregnant assumed she became that way through the normal process. Indeed, this stigma of illegitimacy followed Jesus all his life; the Pharisees allude to it in John chapter 8.

Such was the baby Jesus. Fully human. A humble baby from a poor family. In most eyes, illegitimate. But He grew up to be our Lord and Savior, and He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings!