At Christmas we remember that God came in the person of the baby Jesus. However, the “baby stage” is only thought of as a necessary step to Jesus’ adulthood where the action really happens. I’m suggesting that the baby stage itself reveals the nature of God. God, in fact, is a baby.
That, of course, is a metaphor. God is a father, a shepherd, a bridegroom, a rock, a fountain and many other pictures. All of them reveal a partial truth about the mystery we call God. So how could a cute, cuddly baby reveal anything about the omnipotent God?
I wrote previously, about what I called a mystical experience when looking into my granddaughter, Molly’s, face. The smile of a baby, particularly a very young baby who has just learned to smile can be other-worldly. Beholding absolute innocence, purity and love unveils the holy before our eyes. I think we often sense that; we just don’t pause long enough to savour it.
Such experiences, however, are subjective. What about more objective support? Besides the Son of God being born into our world, is there any other biblical precedent for seeing God as a baby?
The answer is “yes” and it comes in the most surprising place, the Book of Revelation. Jesus is called a lamb twenty-eight times in this book and not just any lamb. The Greek word signifies a tiny, baby lamb. It is used for the young of human and other creatures to portray the innocence, purity, gentleness and vulnerability that draws us to them. We may dismiss them merely as “cute,” but I suggest we are drawn because we sense something more wondrous.
The warfare context of Revelation shows us that saying God’s nature is like that of a baby does not mean life with God is a continual warm, cosy experience. On the contrary, in a world such as ours the peace nature of God means war (see here & here). However, Revelation tells us that the all-powerful God conquers the world, not by domineering power, but by the self-sacrificing love of a meek lamb.1
I believe contemplating this surprising nature of the divine is critical for spiritual growth. Paul says our responsibility in the transformation process is to “imitate God.” We will never be changed into God’s image if we imitate the wrong thing.
The context, both before and after this summons to imitate God in Ephesians 5:1, calls us to the lamb-like qualities of kindness, tender-heartedness, forgiveness and love.2 Two times in this brief passage we’re told to follow Jesus, reminiscent of those in Revelation who “follow the lamb wherever he goes.”3
If God could become a baby, then God must have something of the baby nature. Christmas invites us to kneel at the Bethlehem manger and witness the glory of God shining in the face of the “holy infant so tender and mild.” In doing so, God promises to change us into that same image, little by little, “from glory to glory.”
- There is a way of reading Revelation which delivers us from the disconcerting, violent picture of God we may get if we’re not careful. John is deriding humanity’s faith in violence as the way to bring about peace and a better world. Rather, God allows the destructive, dark forces to play out their agenda. In doing so, however, they meet their end at the hands of an innocent, vulnerable lamb who completely discombobulates and terrifies them. For more on this, see Greg Boyd’s three-part series on Revelation. ↩︎
- Ephesians 4:31-5:2 ↩︎
- Rev. 14:4 ↩︎
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