Mary’s Child

We are into the time of year when we begin to think seriously about Christmas presents. It is also the time of year to begin to think about God’s Christmas Presence, the living Presence of God in Jesus Christ who came into the world as a newborn Baby: Mary’s Child. Mary’s Child, in whom we are given a special place to be with God. A poem by Carl Sandberg says this beautifully:

A baby slung in a feedbox back in a barn, in a Bethlehem slum. A baby’s first cry mixed with the crunch of a mule’s teeth on Bethlehem Christmas corn. Baby fists, softer than snowflakes in Norway. The vagabond mother of Christ and the vagabond men of wisdom, all in a barn on a winter night, and a Baby there in swaddling cloth on hay. Why does the story never wear out?

There is a general sense in which we all understand this. It centers around the word “Incarnation,” which means…