What Child is this?

"What child is this who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?" What child is this? The carol answers its own question, of course. This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing. This child is Christ the King, the one who rules over all heaven and earth. This child holds in his hands the hopes and fears of all the years. This child has the power to defeat death, to cleanse and purify the deepest and vilest of human sins, to bring light into this world’s darkness. This child will stand at eternity’s end as the judge of all the quick and the dead. This child’s touch, this child’s word, will bring God’s healing love into the world.

Quite a child, this child who sleeps on Mary’s lap. A tiny child, asleep. Shall we wake him? He brings us so much, so much that we need, so much that the world needs. He is here among us, now. Shall we rouse him to the work he has come to do? Our need is desperate for his gifts of healing, his gifts of light and life, his creative power. He lies at rest, sleeping on Mary’s lap. Surely it would be an act of faith to turn to him and wake him. After all, it is our faith in his promise, in his power, that draws us to him. It is our faith that seeks in him God’s gifts. This, this, is Christ the King. Wake up, child, and bring God’s rule to our hearts and to this troubled world. Now. We cannot wait.

Or shall we let him sleep? This tiny child in his mother’s arms. This night shall we let him sleep? His face radiant with heaven’s glory, his body still as the depth of time.

We need not wake him to receive his Christmas gift to us. As a tiny baby sleeping… sleeping in his mother’s arms, this child brings us a holy gift. Not the gift of God’s own power that he will bring into the world. There will be many, many days when he will act with that divine power on our behalf. Do not doubt that he will bring to us the gift of God’s transcendent power and care.

But the gift he gives us this night, as he rests asleep in his mother’s lap, is the love and tenderness evoked in our hearts. We look upon this wondrous child with love. To love is a gift. To love God is a miraculous gift. This sleeping child evokes our love. Yes, this child when he wakes will bring God’s love to us. But this child asleep this night brings our love to God. And that is indeed a gracious (grace-filled) Christmas gift.

Frederick Buechner talks about grace. God’s grace. "Grace," he writes, "is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth."

"A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?" [Wishful Thinking] Loving somebody is grace.

Being loved is grace, but loving someone else is also grace. And loving God, knowing and feeling deep and tender love for this child of peace and joy and radiance and hope… our loving this holy child is a miraculous gift of grace.

Isaiah tells us that this child will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. He will also be called Messiah, Son of God, Light of the World, Bread of Life, the Word made flesh, Savior, Redeemer and Judge. He is worthy of our awe and reverence. He may command our obedience. He earns our profound humility and gratitude. He challenges us to put aside our own egos and ambitions and resolve to live lives of faithful worship and sacrifice. He deserves our undivided and undiluted loyalty. He is our God, and we are his people.

And yet, in the midst of all of this indescribable immensity, what God seeks is our love. And so he comes to us, a baby born in "mean estate," in the simplest of settings… so that all of our vision, all of our awareness will be on the child. A sleeping child, vulnerable yet so full of hope and promise. A tiny child come from heaven. We cannot help but love him, this baby, our Lord.

So many of the Christmas hymns and stories tell of acts and feelings of love and tenderness for this child, this child whom shepherds guard and angels sing. Shepherds lovingly guard his slumber, protect his dreams, while angels sing a celestial lullaby. Mary gently wraps and cradles him to her. The three kings, like loving grandparents, travel a great distance bringing gifts that are the best that money can buy. Even the animals express gentle love.

Do you know the Christmas song "The Gifts They Gave?" It tells of the friendly beasts who gathered around this sleeping child.

Jesus, our Brother, kind and good
Was humbly born in a stable of wood
And the friendly beasts around him stood
Jesus, our Brother, kind and good.

I, said the donkey, shaggy and brown
I carried his mother up hill and down
I carried his mother to Bethlehem town
I, said the donkey, shaggy and brown.

I, said the sheep, with curly horn
I gave him my wool for a blanket warm
He wore my coat on Christmas morn
I, said the sheep, with curly horn.

I, said the dove, from rafters high
I cooed him to sleep that he should not cry
We cooed him to sleep, my love and I
I, said the dove, from the rafters high.

Gifts given in tender love. Each animal, according to its kind, offering the best of itself for this little child. The donkey, its sturdy strength; the sheep its rich wool; the dove, its beautiful and soothing voice. Each one acting, offering its life out of love for a sleeping child.

This child, who rests sleeping in Mary’s lap is our Lord, our God. Let us not wake him. Let us love him, purely, tenderly. To evoke this love in us is his gift to us. May the love that flows from our hearts carry with it our gifts to him… our lives, the best of who we are, offered for love of this child. Let us gather around the manger and sing our love in a lullaby of praise. Let us pray our thanksgiving for the miracle of his birth and the wonder of our being a part of it. What a joy it is to love. What grace-filled joy it is to love this holy child.