Jesus' Two Births
Jesus when he died was just as pure on day he died as he was on the day he was born. How pure was that? Imagine Jesus on the day he was born, brand new to the world… when he uttered his first cry and opened his physical eyes to see the world for the first time.
Born to parents of humble station in a place that was fit only for animals… a manger. Born to a young woman who was barely removed from girlhood herself. Shepherds and wise men traveling to see what? A new born baby born to a teenager who even if he couldn’t care for himself still possessed the great hope that one day he would care for the whole world.
Just what did the shepherds and the wise men know? Probably not many details but just enough to know that God had sent someone very special into the world.
Look through the eyes of Mary. Here was the child that she was promised…born like no other… without the assistance of sexual union with a man. She, like the shepherds and wise men, had few details but just enough information to know that God was blessing Israel but certainly not enough to understand that God was blessing not only Israel but the whole world.
Mary got to view everything about Jesus his childhood, his growth to manhood and his three year ministry and his death.
Undoubtedly when she heard the Jews had finally captured Jesus she waited in agony and anticipation outside of where they held her son. Undoubtedly she viewed him stripped and torn carrying his cross to Golgotha, saw the nails hammered into him and saw the cross lifted up and jolted into the ground.
And she saw that in his last moments on earth that he thought not of himself but of her and was concerned about her when he asked John, the beloved disciple, to care for his mother.
There weren’t any shepherds and wise men present at his death like there were at his birth. Just shocked and stunned disciples and the ruffians and the bullies and the profane. Not rejoicing that God had blessed the world with a savior but rejoicing with Satan in their villainy and hatred.
Mary saw everything. She saw Jesus take his first breath and his last. She heard his first cry as a baby and she heard his last spoken words before he died. She saw all those who were his greatest friends and who rejoiced in his company disappear into the crowd and pretend they didn’t even know hims. And she saw hatred. She saw it all.
And when she saw her first born son fade into the throes of death she saw that he was just as innocent as the day he was born. But the world was far from innocent because the world lost its innocence when it killed God’s gift to them.
Several years ago I was riding my bike going down hill on the side walk. I failed to see a three inch lift in the concrete and when my front tire hit it the bike stopped and I was catapulted off the front end and face planted into the concrete. Even though I was wearing a helmet my face was messed up pretty bad. As I laid there in agony and cars drove by not stopping to help, I got my phone and called Julie to come get me and I snapped a photo of my face. Sometime later I showed that photo to my mother. After she looked at it she quickly turned her head and wouldn’t look at it again. She said it hurt her to see me hurt.
I imagine it hurt Mary to look at Jesus in his agony and suffering too… but she did because I have all ideas that she knew it wouldn’t be the last she would see of him.
She had witnessed with the pain of child birth her son being born and she witnessed with a far greater pain his birth into eternity and on both days Jesus was just as pure as he could be and as we are when we are baptized.