Before Jesus Cried.

Before the sound of His cry announced His coming into the world, Jesus entered time and space in silence, surrendering Himself to the limits, darkness and warmth of a human body. Before he was born for the world to see, He was birthed into existence in the most human and most miraculous way possible. He started just like us. And just like us, the beginning was before He was born.

I imagine Jesus came before He had a heartbeat, just as all babies do. Silent, but with all the roaring hope and expectancy a King would come with. Millions of plans and miracles in the tiny blueprint of a Savior’s unique thumbprint. All of earth’s wonder and beauty and majesty shrunk down to miniscule invisibility. Smaller than the size of a poppy seed. Ready to develop and grow only in the direction of the Holy Spirit’s leading, for the sake of all humanity.

It truly was a silent night when Jesus first entered the world. Silence entered earth’s core and humanity was born by a miracle in the womb of a virgin. No sperm met egg. But a zygote was formed just the same, birthed by the breath of the very God who came down. Jesus entered the world as one cell, just like the rest of us. He had 46 chromosomes, all of His hand-designed genetic make-up bursting at the seams with who He was and who He was going to be. The genome of one unique, only-ever being, who was also the long- awaited-for Messiah. A longing that stretched His mother’s belly as He took on heartbeat, flesh, and bones. A longing that was growing as He attached to human lining, completely dependent on his mother for survival. The Creator of the universe sustained by the mother He Himself had formed. The Creator who knew her before she was born, now known by her as son. The son of her womb, and the Son of her own rescue. While we were made from dust, He was made from glory.

He grew and He kicked. He did flips and sucked His thumb. And when the time had come for Him to be born, He came into the world as one of us in every way and He sucked in the very air we breathe and filled His lungs with the oxygen provided by God. And He cried. And the voice of His mother comforted Him as she looked into the eyes of her son and her Lord and gazed at this miracle of helplessness, of dependence, of hunger and need. She must have wondered at this path He had chosen to come into her world. The months of growing, the darkness, the tiny space, and the cold, naked journey into history. This 9-month journey that started invisible to the naked eye, not seen even by an ultrasound. There was no proof to anyone alive that He existed, except for Mary and Elizabeth, Joseph and Zechariah. And John the Baptist too, for he leapt in His mother’s womb when He was but five months along—He too knew it was all true. What a wonder and a weight to carry this gift and this mystery mostly alone. For who else would have believed that it was true?

At Christmas, along with the shepherds and the wisemen, we sing and we rejoice at the coming of Jesus as a baby. “He’s here! The Savior of the world has come!” But this year, I am pondering something new. His first entrance into the world. The one that brought no angelic announcements in the sky, no supernatural star to start the spreading of the wonderful news. No shepherds or wisemen. This Christmas, I am celebrating with a new awe and wonder along with Mary and Elizabeth. I rejoice and exclaim with them, “He’s here! Our Savior is here! The King of Kings has come.” Not as a baby on a silent, cold night, but as the tiniest of humans in the secret, sacred space of a womb. In the hidden place that only His Father had eyes to see.

Light in the dark happened before Jesus was born. Light exploded in the darkest, most unseen place, in the secret place that God hollowed out with His thoughts before the beginning of time. This time, His creation was more than good. It was perfect. Before the shepherds, before the wise men, before the kings, His entrance to earth was announced from heaven…as a microscopic wonder. A miracle of the tiniest human size.  From a zygote to an embryo to a fetus, moving and growing, sleeping and kicking, being and becoming, all while rescuing the world.

What a story. What a Savior. The invisible is here. The light of the world has come.

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:11

Imagine and wonder with me…

Today in the town of Bethlehem, a Savior has been given to you, an unborn baby; He is the Messiah, the Lord.

This Christmas, I am pondering loving the Jesus that was the tiniest version of Himself during His humanity.