“A Baby Changes Everything”
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a
Luke 2:41-52
Perhaps
some of you have seen last year’s Oscar nominated
movie Juno. It is the story of a
bright, independent teenager who unwittingly becomes pregnant and faces a
future far different from her previously carefree days as a high school
student.
She
is confronted by overwhelming decisions: How and when to tell her parents? Her boyfriend? Her classmates? And, more importantly, what she should do
about the baby, for whom she feels both tenderness and responsibility. A heavy burden for one so young.
The
film is the wry and touching account of the ways in which Juno’s
decisions affect her, her family, her friends, and the prospective adoptive
parents. It is also the story of how
Juno’s hopes and dreams for the future are
put in jeopardy.
As
most of us know, regardless of the circumstances, a baby changes our lives,
just as it did Juno’s. Can you remember when your mother went off to
the hospital and came home with a baby brother or sister you were automatically
supposed to love, but who slobbered, howled in the night, and later on grabbed
your very own toys? Or recall when you
were a young couple able to go to the movies anytime you wanted, when
spontaneity thrived, and the world revolved around just the two of you. And then came the blessed arrival—a
baby!
Goodbye
spontaneity, hello responsibility.
Goodbye frivolous expenditures, hello mortgage payments. Farewell spur-of-the-moment outings,
greetings teenage babysitters.
Wonderful, bewildering parenthood—and life was never
again the same.
Whether
it is a result of a film like Juno or of our own experience, most of us
can empathize to some degree with Mary and Joseph as we follow the unfolding of
the Christmas story. Their journey—from
the angel’s appearance to the unwed Mary to the
heavenly host heralding the newborn king—is beautifully
retold in a song introduced this year by Faith Hill. It is called “A Baby Changes
Everything.”
It
begins:
Teenage
girl, much too young/ Unprepared for what’s to come
A
baby changes everything
Not
a ring on her hand/ All her dreams and all her plans
A
baby changes everything
A
baby changes everything
How
will Mary tell Joseph, her betrothed, that she is pregnant? What will be his reaction, the reaction of
her family and friends? Will they turn
on her? Cast her out? Yet Mary has promised the angel: “Here
am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
[Luke 1:38]
The
song continues:
The
man she loves she’s never touched/
How will she keep his trust?
A
baby changes everything/ A baby changes everything
And
she cries, ooh, she cries, ooh, oh
Joseph
changes his mind about dismissing Mary quietly after an angel appears to him in
a dream and reveals that the child is “from the Holy
Spirit” and is to be named Jesus, “for
he will save his people from their sins.” [Matt. 1:20-21]
Then
begins the tedious journey to Bethlehem—Mary, big with
child, balancing precariously on the back of a donkey, led by Joseph, a young
man whose thoughts and feelings we can only imagine.
She
has to leave, go far away/Heaven knows she can’t stay
A
baby changes everything
She
can feel it’s coming soon/
There’s no place, there
is no room
A
baby changes everything/ A baby changes everything
And
she cries, and she cries/ Oh, she cries
But
in that improbable place, a stable far from home, a miracle occurs. A baby is born, a baby who changes everything
for all eternity. Listen.
Shepherds
gather ‘round/ Up above
the stars shine down
A
baby changes everything
Choirs
of angels sing/ Glory to the newborn King
A
baby changes everything/ A baby changes everything
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
The
song goes on to assure us that this king will, indeed, “save
his people from their sins.” In the moment of Jesus’
birth is also the inevitability of his sacrifice for us, a sacrifice bound up
in God’s everlasting and unwavering love.
My
whole life has turned around/ I was lost, but now I’m found
A
baby changes everything, yeah,/ A baby changes everything
[Nichols, Wiseman, and Wiseman,
songwriters; BUG Music,
Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. 2008.
Found at www.cduniverse.com]
Little
could Mary and Joseph have guessed how that tiny baby would change their
lives. Instead of returning to their
village following Jesus’ birth, they were
forced to flee to Egypt to escape Herod’s cruel purging of
innocent children. According to most
scholars, it was probably about two years before the little family finally made
its way to Nazareth. Yet always, through
the medium of dreams, they were convinced of God’s active role in
their lives.
And
what of God’s promise that Jesus “will
be holy; he will be called the Son of God”? [Luke
1:35]. How could the young parents
reconcile such a vision with that of their son playing in the sawdust of his
father’s carpenter shop or running with
abandon alongside the village boys? And
because Mary and Joseph trusted God’s word, they must’ve
known the day would come when Jesus’ destiny would be
revealed to others.
Yes,
a baby changes everything. But, as any “empty
nester” knows, that baby grows and the time
arrives when the child is no longer “ours.” He becomes his own person with his own ideas
and his own vision for the future.
For
Mary and Joseph that realization comes in Jerusalem when they observe how the
twelve-year-old Jesus amazes the teachers in the temple with the depth of his
understanding and the incisiveness of his questions. They have been frantically searching for him
to take him back to Nazareth. And here
he is, calmly holding his own with respected, wise spiritual leaders. Mary, anguished, says, “Child
why have you treated us like this? Look,
your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”
[Luke 2:48] And at that moment
everything changes. Jesus looks up and
says, “Did you not know that I must be in my
Father’s house?” [Luke 2:49]
In
that single reference to his heavenly father, Jesus makes it clear that he is
subject to a higher claim than that of his earthly family. Though nearly twenty years pass before he
begins his ministry, he has already accepted the role God has planned for him—nothing
short of being the Savior of us all!
In
his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey relates this fantasy of
author J.B. Phillips.
A
senior angel was showing a young angel around the splendors of the
universe. As they drew near to the star
which we call our sun and to its circling planets, the senior angel pointed to
a small and rather insignificant sphere turning very slowly on its axis. It looked as dull as a dirty tennis-ball to
the little angel, whose mind was filled with the size and glory of other
galaxies and suns he had seen.
“I want you to
watch that one particularly,” said the senior
angel, pointing with his finger.”
“Well, it looks
very small and rather dirty to me,” said the little
angel. “What’s special about
that one?”
He
listened in stunned disbelief as the senior angel told him that this planet,
small and insignificant and not overly clean, was the renowned Visited Planet.
“Do you mean that
our great and glorious Prince . . . went down in Person to this fifth-rate
little ball? Why should He do a thing
like that?” . . .
The
little angel’s face wrinkled in
disgust. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that He stooped so low as to become one of those creeping,
crawling creatures of that floating ball?”
“I do, and I don’t think He would like you to call them `creeping, crawling
creatures’ in that tone of
voice. For, strange as it may seem to
us, He loves them. He went down to visit
them to lift them up to become like Him.”
The
little angel looked blank. Such a
thought was almost beyond his comprehension. [Paraphrased and quoted from Yancey,
pp. 43-44.]
Indeed,
almost beyond comprehension.
Our
Christmas is never “over,”
because as Paul says in today’s reading from
Ephesians, we “know what is the hope to which he has
called [us], what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,
and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.”
[Ephesians 1:18-19]
Even
in the darkness of despair or the pain of discouragement or loss lie the seeds
of hope, the promise of forgiveness, and the assurance of abundant life
forevermore.
Because
. . . a baby changed everything!
AMEN.
Laura Shoffner
St. James’ Episcopal Church
Eureka Springs, AR
JANUARY 4, 2009