The holidays will be extra-fun this year. It's the first Christmas for our new grandson, Ezra.
We haven't enjoyed the presence of small children around our house for quite some time now. As a matter of fact—depending on how you define the term "small children"—we haven't celebrated a Christmas with little kids for going on 20 years now.
Of course, Ezra doesn't know what's up yet. He doesn't understand who Jesus is, or what a Christmas tree is. He has no clue about shepherds, angels and mangers. Shoot, except for possibly his own sense of self-awareness, he doesn't even know what a baby is.
Still, we've already bought Ezra a bunch of Christmas presents. (OK, true confession: Joanna bought him a bunch of Christmas presents and told me what we're getting him. I respect that. I'm good with it.) I hope he enjoys them for months and months to come.
Meanwhile, I'm pretty certain he'll get a huge charge out of the boxes and the wrapping paper. It probably would be a good idea just to give babies boxes and wrapping paper for their first Christmases and first birthdays. That's what they like best, anyway.
When Ezra came to our house for Thanksgiving, his mama and daddy packed a whole passle of toys. We spread them out on the den floor, and I had a great time playing with them. He's got this one with buttons covered by pictures of a doggie, a horsey, a piggie, a goat and a few other assorted animals. If you've got pretty good rhythm and reflexes, you can sorta make the animals sound like they're rapping. Ezra's lousy at it, but I'm pretty good.
Anyway, you know when Ezra had the most fun? I gave him one of my old magazines. He tore it to smithereens. And the only time he got upset was when I wouldn't let him chew on the pages. (In case you haven't been around a 10-month-old baby much lately, here's the inside scoop on their behavior: Everything is going to the mouth. A 10-month-old thinks, "If it ain't worth tasting, it ain't worth knowing about.")
During the long Thanksgiving weekend, Ezra arrived at our house with his first-ever ear infection. He felt pretty lousy for a couple of days, until the "pink stuff" kicked in, and his fever broke.
Ezra's arrival at our house, with Christmas not far behind, reminded me how deeply God loves this world. Unless you're around them all the time, it's easy to forget the breadth of babies' vulnerability and the inherent danger of being a baby.
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And yet God took on that most vulnerable form—a human baby—to come down here and demonstrate divine love. He clothed himself in unlimited weakness to convey unfathomable love.
As a father, and now a grandfather, I cannot imagine offering my child or grandchild as an incarnate token of love. Yet that's exactly what God did. Merry Christmas, indeed.
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