The Perfect Gift
It was the month before Christmas when my first child, Joshua, was born. This was my first Christmas as a mother and I held a tiny new life in my arms, a life that had been a growing part of me for the past nine months. In less than a year, every part of me was changed. My body grew, my ankles swelled, and a person I had never seen but knew so well kicked and hiccoughed and moved inside me.
Childbirth itself is life changing. The immense pain was followed by a love I’d never before known. Overnight I learned to feed, bathe, clothe and rock a helpless life reliant on me for its very existence. I also came to understand why sleep deprivation is such an effective form of torture.
A whole range of emotions I didn’t know existed coursed through my body. I was scared and proud; I felt strong and yet weak. I cried and I laughed and all of a sudden the word “love” took on a whole new meaning. I felt as though I was the only mother in the world to have ever felt like this!
Only as I spoke with other women and listened to the amazing changes motherhood had made to their lives, did I realise I wasn’t alone.
I was relatively young when the midwife placed my tiny squirming son on my belly and announced, “It’s a boy!” But in a moment I grew up. I became his mother. He was now my reason for living, and the last nine months of dealing with an unplanned pregnancy were so worthwhile.
I was so glad to be his mother. I liked the feel of being someone’s “Mummy”! And I knew that for some reason, God had chosen me to be his mum.
Christmas with a new baby was very exciting. David, my husband, and I wrapped little gifts that Joshua was too young to hold, let alone open. We took photos of him under the Christmas tree, and signed our Christmas cards with his name along with our own. It was so much fun.
But along with my Christmas renaissance, I wonder about its true meaning—about why we sing carols about snow, bells and reindeer. (What is a one-horse, open sleigh?) Surely, I thought, there’s more to Christmas than this.
And I remembered another mother. A young mother who had to also deal with an unplanned pregnancy, but with the real shame, in her society and times, of not being married.
I wondered how she coped: To whom did she turn to for advice? In whom did she confide? Who explained childbirth to her? I doubt she’d attended a class like we did.
Mary didn’t have the comforts of a pretty, warm room where, at the push of a button, she could summon help or have a question answered. No clinically clean delivery suite either, just a smelly, messy stall out the back of a hotel.
She gave birth in a stable. She held her tiny son and wondered what this was all about. She had hopes and dreams for her tiny son, as I did (and still do). She didn’t understand Christmas either, or know that her infant son—in fact God’s Son—was the heart and meaning of Christmas!
As I looked down into my arms and watched Joshua breathe and sigh as newborn babies do, I felt our first Christmas together would be different. As she looked at Baby Jesus she sensed hope, for she knew what the angel had said. She knew her son would somehow change the world. Even though Mary didn’t understand fully what it all meant, at our end of history I think we can.
This is why we pause before the manger scene in our shopping centres at Christmas time, or lovingly finger that intricate, ceramic nativity scene in a department store. Somewhere deep within we feel a stirring, a small feeling of hope. It’s a feeling that Christmas is not only about decorations for trees, Santa and sleighs, store-bought gifts and colourful bows.
This is why, lingering in front of the tableau, we seek the youthful face of Mary in the manger. We stop and forget about the roast meal we have to prepare, or the last-minute gifts for people we can’t remember why we buy for, and we gaze into the manger and see hope.
Our world needs hope. Hope for those damaged by senseless cruelty; for those stricken with AIDS or cancer or depression. Hope for starving children, and hope for ourselves for those days when we just can’t seem to find any.
It can be hard to see how a baby lying in a feed trough can offer that. And, really, you have to look at His adult life to see how it worked out, but His birth fulfilled God’s promise. And Mary’s child is certainly of greater significance than the one-horse, open sleigh!
Even as we pause and place our shopping bags on the floor to look down into the manger, we look to see if Baby Jesus is there. When children look at Him their innocence is awakened, and ours is renewed, and the hope of Christmas is lit in our hearts once more.
No-one leaves a nativity scene without glancing at Jesus. We look for the shepherds, the donkey, Joseph and Mary, but it is the Child who captures our attention.
You hear small children say, “Look, Mummy! There’s Baby Jesus.” There’s something about that baby that makes it feel like Christmas.
So we remain at the manger; we like what we see and what we’re feeling. We allow ourselves to get lost in the moment, forgetting where we are and why we’re there. We let the manger touch us.
Sometimes we glance up. Perhaps we want to see a star, or to feel closer to Him. Of course, Jesus is no longer in a manger, and we don’t have to look heavenward, for we can feel Him now in our hearts and the hope of Christmas is back!
Somewhere—from carols played through the store or a memory from school days—we recall a song: “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head.” And, feeling strangely better for a few moments’ pause, we smile to ourself, pick up our bulging shopping bags and, renewed, head off to find that perfect gift.
But wait! We’re told that the birth of Jesus fulfilled what had been said by the prophet: “‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23).
He is God’s perfect gift.
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This is an extract from December 2003
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