The Birth of God

I suspect the very words the birth of God are offensive to some. Isn't God self-existent, and therefore not subject to a beginning?

Perhaps this connundrum is part of the weight of the Gospel. God dared enter time by actually being born in the flesh, putting on our nature so to save us. (Philippians 2:5-11)

I rambled in my journal last year about the concept. This year, I was privileged to hear friend Tricia Walker sing an Andrew Peterson song on the birth of God at Daystar's Evening in December. The hearing of it startled me. I thought to my self-absorbed self: I wrote that song, that's mine. Quickened, I winced. Only one of countless examples of my dire need. Yes, God really did come in the flesh, to save me (and you). Here's what I what believed Andrew Peterson stole from me:

Birth of God

I’m wondering several things: if the birth of Jesus was on a damp Bethlehem night, as this one is here, in the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee. Did the rain fall cold? Were the gathered creatures in the stable disarmed by the intrusion of the lonely travelers?
The mother was a child herself; perhaps her labor prompted cries of such volume the sheep grew tired of their antiphonal wailing; maybe they stood by in silent contentment to watch what, for their kind, was not uncommon. Maybe other animals were not so quiet. Mournful cattle bellowed and doves perched atop the stable cooed as darkness enveloped them all.
Joseph gathered his tunic at his waist, knelt in the straw and fastened a calloused hand on the knee of the girl, now in full labor. Expectant, and alive, this earthly father must have been astonished at what was taking place, recalling what the Angel of the Lord said. (Matthew 1:19-25)
Mary gave one last cry of agonizing hope as Eternity thrust himself into time. Tears spilled from the girl as her opening stretched to accommodate the boisterous newborn; no pain had been as sharp, no pain would be until that Friday.
Exhausted, and exuberant, Mary received her son, as Joseph‘s bloody hands passed the tiny screaming lad to her. Was it coincidence the birth of God to have been awash in blood? Though they had been told, could they have apprehended that God himself was with them? (Matthew 1:23, Luke 1:26-33)


When God appoints the time, the time has come, and so it was, the ugly, glorious, birth of God.