The Advent of Growth

The miracle of Christmas is that God was born as a human. God became one of us, truly one of us. He did not appear in human likeness. The Christ, the Son of God, became one of us as His body was formed in His mother's womb, just as my body was knit together in my mother's womb.

When Christ came to earth, He didn't appear full grown. Jesus was born into this world with the blood, sweat, and probably tears through his mother's labor. He was born as a baby, not knowing or being able to do much at all. He had a lot to learn.

Baby Jesus had to learn how to breast feed. He had to learn how to crawl, how to walk, how to run. He had to be potty trained. Jesus had to grow in knowledge and wisdom as well. It wasn't just physical growth. He had to learn how to relate. He had to learn language, or in his time and place, languages. He would have learned Hebrew (the language of the scriptures), Aramaic (the language of the streets), and probably a smattering of Greek (the language of society and culture) and Latin (the language of government). He also learned a trade, carpentry. 

Jesus didn't just pop into our world and start performing miracles. He lived a full life of childhood and through adolescence to manhood. In being born, growing, and learning as we all do, Jesus sanctified the process, he showed these to be holy activities, or at least that they could be done in a holy and sinless way.

I was struck by this anew recently as I was berating myself for failing to do something that I knew was best, that I ultimately wanted to do. I felt like I should be farther along already. I should be done growing. As I took this to the Lord, I felt the gentle reminder that He was patient with me. In my petulance I felt myself bristle internally, feeling that He couldn't understand what it was like to not be perfect.

Then I remembered. Jesus grew up. Jesus was perfect in the sense of never having broken fellowship with the Father, He never sinned. But he was not perfect in that He never made any grammatical or spelling mistakes as He was learning language. He did not suddenly know how to do carpentry. He learned from Joseph, in the workshop, or on the job. He had to learn, and undoubtedly made mistakes. Jesus Christ knows what it is like to not know things and to learn.

This gives me hope. We have a God who has walked a mile in our shoes. He knows what it is to learn and to grow. His growth sanctifies my growth. I can give myself the grace to grow and be in process.

Jesus birth, which we celebrate at Christmas, gives me grace for growth.