We look for the glory of the life of Jesus in His manhood’s years. Then He wrought great miracles, revealing His divine power. Then He spoke His wonderful words which have touched the world with their influence of blessing. Then He went about doing good, showing the love of God in all His common life, and on His cross. We do not turn to the infancy of Jesus for supernatural revealings. The apocryphal Gospels have their stories of infant prodigies, but we do not accept these, and are careful to say that Jesus wrought no miracles and showed no revealings of deity until He had been anointed with the Holy Spirit.
Yet in no portion of the life of Jesus Christ is there really greater glory than His birth. Nothing showed more love for the world than His condescending to be born. We should say that the heart of the gospel was the cross, but the first act of redemption was the Incarnation, when the Son of God emptied Himself of His divine attributes and entered human life in all the feebleness and helpfulness of infancy. In its revealing of love and grace, the cradle of Jesus is as marvelous as His cross.
It is impossible to sum up the blessings of this holy Infancy. Childhood everywhere is exalted by it. Something of the light of the manger shines now about every child’s cradle. Wonderful has been the ministry even of the pictures of the infant Jesus. Where the story of the birth of Christ is known, the world becomes a safer place for all children; hearts are gentler and truer, and the air is sweeter where the Christmas message is told. Since Christ, the Son of God, was born the Son of Mary, all infancy is sacred.
“Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”
We should learn to reverence childhood. The home to which a baby has come is a sacred place. It is nigh to heaven. The parents who fail to understand the blessing that has come to them in their little one are missing a revelation as glorious as the burning bush, before which Moses was bidden to take off his shoes.