“…such was his intention…”
--Matthew 1:18-24
We all have intentions, our hopes, our dreams, our plans for the day, for life—even for the holidays. Maybe we intend to get up earlier, to start the day with a healthy breakfast, to eat more broccoli, to do core exercises every day before heading off to work… When I was in 4th grade a teacher asked me what I planned to do with my life. I told her I wanted to be a singer! My intention was to be another Donovan… or maybe another Davy Jones, even another John Sebastian. Later in high school, hoping to impress a young lady, I tried singing for her. She listened a moment, then asked (with some concern), “Does it hurt when you do that?” My singing aspirations have been much more private ever since.
As the saying goes: If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Or sing to your girlfriend.
In the Gospel for the 4th Sunday of Advent, we hear of Joseph and his plans, his intentions. Oddly enough, this story begins with Joseph original plans crumbling to pieces. He was planning to get married but, right in the first verse he discovers that his bride has become pregnant and the baby isn’t his. One can imagine his shock and probable disappointment, however, instead of lashing out or seeking justice, he comes up with another plan. It would seem that he still has some feeling for Mary, and so he plans to spare her any public scene. He intends to divorce her quietly, and protect her from the shame and possible consequences of being accused of adultery, which (at that time) might have included being dragged to the city gates and stoned to death.
Joseph’s intentions were honorable, they were good, they were even merciful, and yet they were not God’s plan, not God’s intention. God’s intention was to put a baby in Joseph’s house. Think about that. And maybe ask yourself: In some way, isn’t that the real point of Christmas? To let a baby into our house, into our heart, into our life…
Consider, what happens when a baby comes into the house? Speaking from experience, everything changes. Sleep schedules, diets, volume levels, washing schedules, and even personal hygiene. The baby makes demands on our time, our energy, our attention, our budget, our love. A baby demands that we change our expectations, our intentions, our life for it. Even our TV schedule! I never would have imagined a life that included Barney the Dinosaur and Teletubbies. We have to humble ourselves and do things we never wanted to imagine ourselves doing; i.e. listening to Wee Sing cassettes in the car, or changing a diaper on a city bus, or cleaning up an unexpected mess, and trying to figure out which end it came out of!!
A baby demands that we put our own needs and desires aside, for its sake, for its care. That we lay down our life for the sake of another. And strangely enough, it is the baby that teaches us that this isn’t a curse, this isn’t an agony we want to avoid. What we learn by caring for a baby, is that the more we sacrifice for a child, the deeper we love it; the more we give ourselves away to their care and their needs, their smiles and their laughter, their peace and their delight, the more we are filled with such things ourselves.
Some of my most blessed memories are of waking at 3 in the morning to walk with one of my daughters. I was exhausted. Often, I was confused. My intention had been to get at least a few hours of sleep, but instead I would hear the cry, or the call from down the hallway and I would climb out of bed—sometimes a little grouchy—but always (in the end) renewed by the chance to comfort their need; in fact, by the gift of their need. And through that gift, I was fulfilled. Because somewhere in all that middle of the night walking and swaying and carrying of a baby, I began again to sing. I became—at least for a time—the singer I had always wanted to be. Walking the floor, or even the neighborhood streets, singing old Bob Dylan songs or folk songs, hobo songs, and especially, “Goodnight Irene.” In my three daughters I had a very appreciative, and a very captive, audience for about 8-9 years—about as long as the Beatles lasted. I can still remember a time when one of them, by that point a toddler, said to her mother, “No. Let Daddy sing. I like it when Daddy sings…”
This Christmas, are you ready to let your life be upended? All your plans and intentions disrupted, maybe even utterly and completely changed? This Christmas are you ready to let a baby into your house? Your heart? Your life? This Christmas, don’t just focus on the gift wrapping and the Christmas lights, the traditions and the trappings of the holiday. This Christmas, take a little time to focus on the baby. Imagine it. God took flesh and became not a king or a prince or a mighty hero, but a helpless baby, crying in a manger, a baby became completely and utterly dependent on the humans He had created. Think about that as your Christmas gift… This baby needed feeding, cleaning, needed to be held and to be comforted. And all He asked was that Mary and Joseph set aside their own plans, their own expectations and intentions and let themselves be changed, blessed and fulfilled beyond their imagining, by the love of a child.
This Christmas, let a baby come into your life.
It will change everything.
