Christmas According to Kids Part 2 — John the Baptist Knew - Tuesday
TODAY’S VERSE
Luke 1:41a
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. (ESV)
The Christmas story is awash with miracles. Angels popping up all over the place. A census that happened to fulfill a 700-year-old prophecy. A shining star that put MapQuest to shame. Not to mention an old lady who became pregnant after a lifetime of infertility, and most importantly, her young cousin who became pregnant as a teenage virgin… with the literal Son of God. There is a lot going on in the Christmas story.
But sometimes in the midst of the unusual, we miss the miracle of the ordinary. In this case, the ordinary miracle of life’s beginning.
When we think of baby Jesus, we usually think of the baby in the manger. Maybe the baby big enough to give Mary a round belly as she rides a donkey in the school’s nativity play. But in reality, baby Jesus began as all babies do, with a moment of exact conception. While the means of conception by the work of the Holy Spirit was different from any other human baby, the scientific process by way of human development was otherwise exactly the same. Jesus didn’t start in Mary’s womb as a fully developed newborn. He began as a zygote, which became a blastocyst, which became an embryo, and on and on through God’s own design, He developed until the day of His actual birth.
A small detail that is of great importance in the Christmas story is the moment that the baby in Elizabeth’s womb (John the Baptist) LEAPS at the presence of the baby in Mary’s womb (Jesus). Why? Because it affirms that Jesus was Jesus even before anyone else on the planet could see or hear or feel Him. Elizabeth was already 6 months along at this point, but Mary was barely pregnant. Yet from the moment of Jesus’ miraculous conception, He was a person. A person whose presence was recognized and leapt at!
This particular part of the story is one of the most miraculous to me. I lost two babies this year through miscarriage, but this small detail of the Christmas story affirms that those little ones—my babies—were people from the moment of their conception. Just like Jesus was. The spark of unique and precious life begins at conception and exists eternally. And because Mary’s baby grew up and saved the world through His death and resurrection, it means that a day is coming when I will get to meet tiny hands I’ve never held, chubby cheeks I’ve never kissed, little voices I’ve never heard. There are two small people whom I have a long-overdue heavenly playdate with that I can’t wait to see—because when the ordinary miracle of life meets the extraordinary miracle of Jesus, death never has the final say.
PRAYER
Lord, give me eyes to see the fresh hope of Christmas in the most familiar of stories. Thank You for displaying Your extraordinary grace even in ordinary ways. Amen.
