Christmas Babies Series

Elenor Cicok had a three year old daughter who developed an emotional block and ceased

to talk. She never said a word, not even mama when she wanted her mother. It was a terrible

ordeal as she went month after month in silence. Her mother taught her about God and

prayer, and read to her about Jesus. Her favorite picture in the book was of Mary holding

baby Jesus.

After two years of this, one day just before Christmas she was walking past the church

with Vicki, and she took her in. There was the Virgin Mary and the child. The girl suddenly

broke her silence and said, "Look! Baby Jesus!"

Babies have a way of opening up voices that otherwise are silent. Go walking through a

mall with a baby and total strangers will come up to you and talk about the baby. They would

never dream of approaching you without the baby present. Babies break down walls like

nothing else. Babies may not talk, but they motivate more talk than most anyone. The

Christmas baby is no exception. He has probably stimulated more words than any thousand

babies ever born.

Not all talk of babies is positive. Someone asked little Tommy, " how do you like your new

baby sister?" "She is all right," he said, "but there's a lot of things we needed more." There

was nothing man needed more on that first Christmas, however, than the baby Jesus. He was

the first born so he did not stimulate any of the jealousy problems that often come with a

later child. Johnny said, "sure there are no favorites in this family! If I bite my fingernails I

get a rap on the knuckles, but if baby eats her whole foot they think its cute." Jesus did not

have this sort of thing, but he did have to contend with Herod who had no room in his heart

for babies announced as the King of Israel. He so despised this infant king that he killed all

the infants in Bethlehem that could have been him. He marred that first Christmas with

tragedy because of his anti-baby attitude.

We do have to give Herod credit for one thing, he knew the potential of a baby. He was

not so nieve as to think a baby is nothing to worry about. He recognized that a baby can be a

serious threat because babies represent the future, a future that will be changed because of

them. Herod, by his hostility to a baby, bore witness to the reality of baby power. When God

wants to change history He starts with a baby. That is why the Bible is so full of begats.

Somebody is always having a baby, and that meant a new chapter in God's plan.

For four hundred years Israel was enslaved in Egypt. Then baby Moses was born, and

that marked the beginning of a radical change for God's people. Their deliverance began

with the deliverance of this one baby. Moses had to be saved to become the savior of his

people.

So in the New Testament story, the deliverance of all men began with the deliverance of

the baby of Bethlehem. He had to be saved from Herod to become the Savior of the world.

Save a baby and you may be saving a family, a race, a nation, or a whole world. Baby power

is a major factor in all of history.

In 1809, Napoleon was the master of Europe and all eyes were on him. But the future

really belonged to the babies born that year. That was the year for the birth of Lincoln,

Gladstone, Tennyson, Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Cyrus McCormick, Chopin and

Mendelssohn. These babies gave the world a creative future that outweighed all the damage

done by Napoleon. Europe was thinking of battles, but it was the babies that would change

the future. The decisive battles are all forgotten except to a few historians, but the decisive

babies are remembered by millions.

Wise men recognize the baby power in history. Socrates said, "Could I climb to the

highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim: 'fellow citizens, why do ye turn

and scrape every stone to gather wealth and take so little care of your children, to whom one

day you must relinquish it all?'" He was wise enough to see the obvious. The people of God

in the Old Testament could see it as well for their hope of salvation hinged on babies.

God's very first command to Adam and Eve was in Genesis 1:28 where he says they are be

fruitful and multiply so as to fill the earth and subdue it. In other words, by means of babies

man would conquer the rest of creation. When they sinned and fell God did not change His