The Weekly Word: Where’s the baby?

By Tim Purcell, Superintendent of the Iowa/Minnesota District of The Wesleyan Church

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”  

— Matthew 1:21 (NIV

By the time you read this, Thanksgiving will have come and gone, and we will be heading into the season of Advent.

Over the next couple of weeks, it will be quite common to see the word “Christmas” abbreviated as “X-mas.” It’s really kind of a fitting term for our modern-day Christmas celebrations, because they are filled with Xcitement, Xhaustion, Xcuses, Xchanges, Xcesses, Xtravagances, Xasperations, and Xhibitions!

As we look at the great Christmas Scripture passages in the weeks ahead, we will cluck our collective tongues at the teachers of the law for their unwillingness to believe that the Messiah really had come.

We will probably continue to defame the poor innkeeper for not finding room in the inn for Mary and Joseph. And we will once again chastise King Herod for his unwillingness to give up his throne.

Before we get too indignant with those guys for botching the first Christmas, we had better take a closer look at our own celebrations.

Luis Palau tells of a wealthy European family that decided to have their newborn baby baptized in their enormous mansion. Dozens of guests were invited to the elaborate affair, and they all arrived dressed to the hilt. After depositing their elegant wraps on a bed in an upstairs room, the guests were entertained royally.

Soon the time came for the main purpose of their gathering: the infant’s baptismal ceremony. But where was the baby? No one seemed to know. The child’s governess ran upstairs and returned with a desperate look on her face.

Everyone searched frantically for the baby. Then someone recalled having seen him asleep on one of the beds.

The baby was on a bed all right — buried beneath a pile of coats, jackets and furs. The object of that day’s celebration had been forgotten, neglected and nearly smothered.

It’s a great word picture of what our modern-day Christmas celebrations have become. If we’re not careful, the baby whose birth we are supposed to be celebrating gets smothered beneath piles of activity and busyness.

Perhaps some of us need to pray the prayer a mother overheard her 3-year-old praying, “Forgive us our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a “Scrooge” and I love so much of how we celebrate the season. I love the Christmas decorations, the gift-giving and the music.

But if we’re not careful, even we who are followers of the Savior find ourselves allowing the secular to crowd out the sacred.

Enjoy the season and all its activity, but as you walk through Advent, keep asking yourself, “Where’s the baby?”