What Child is This?

The following is adapted from a Christmas message I wrote in 2017, which is why it might sound familiar…

I have so many unanswered questions about the Christmas story. When was Jesus really born? What day? What year? Was the manger inside or outside? Did he look like Mary? Did he have cowlicks? Did he have bad breath? Did he cry? How many family members were around for the birth? How many shepherds were there? How many magi, if any? Although fun to imagine the answers to those questions, they really aren't important. The most important question was, "What child is this?"

This child, looking upward from his manger bed while the rest of the universe—the stars, the angels, the shepherds, the animals, the virgin mother, the father (so it was thought) Joseph—all looking down on this, this, "What child?"

It was all backwards. The King of kings, Lord of lords, Creator of everything, a tiny helpless baby looking up at the things under his authority. When we look up at the heavens, if you ever actually get to see the stars away from all light pollution, it is so magnificent it makes you feel incredibly small. Uncountable stars of every color, some big, some in clusters that look like clouds, some twinkling, some shooting across the sky. The universe is so big and alive it shrinks us down to almost nothingness. And here in this manger is this baby who created it all, looking up at it for the first time. What child is this?

I'm sure everyone present was asking a similar question. The answers they thought they knew all sort of changed when they looked on the tiny baby's face. When Nolan, my second, was born, his pediatrician was stupefied. There were some anomalies, and the doctor needed to consult with some specialists. The specialists told him they didn't know what the anomalies meant. It took nine months and a drive to Portland to learn the answers to those questions. He was born with Freeman Sheldon Syndrome, which is a detail in this story that I'll come back to later. But when the doctor’s looked on my baby’s face, there were more questions than answers.

As a father, I like to read the Christmas story and put myself in Joseph's shoes. What was he thinking about this child, the one whom angels prepared him for, but didn't carry his DNA? How was he supposed to feel a connection with this child who was more of a Christmas present than a son? I remember how easy it was for me to connect with my first born, Dominick. At that first diaper change I thought to myself, "This child came from my body, this filth came from his, so therefore this filth really just came from me, and I can handle this." His smell, his feel, his strikingly handsome features, all resembled me. He was familiar. But for Joseph of Nazareth, this child wouldn't have been so familiar.

Joseph may have thought, "What child is this? I can admire him for who the angels say he is, but can I really know and love him? Can I truly have a connection with him?" I have two adopted children that look very different from me. So much excitement, preparation, and research happened before I met their eyes for the first time. I knew all the answers, but I didn't know them.

In 2017 I was in China with Sara and Dominick, and when they brought a little 4-year-old into the crowded room, all of a sudden he was ours. Sara had seen his picture on the internet five months prior while I was at Manland. Remarkably, the child in the picture had the same anomalies that stumped the doctors when Nolan was born. By this time we knew more than our doctors about Freeman Sheldon Syndrome, and we diagnosed this child from his photograph online. He was older than the others in his orphanage, and therefore a "special focus" child. We knew right away he was ours, but it didn't feel like that in China when he stormed into the crowded room on his wobbly ankles. He looked and smelled funny. He had bad breath, his hair was weird, and he was more interested in the trash can than in us. He didn't know us and we didn't know him. We could look down on him and admire him, but could we really know and love him? Could I truly have a connection with him? What child is this?"

To really connect with someone is different than to know about them. It's not looking at his picture and reading his medical history. It's not being told by an angel who he will be. It's not following him on Facebook, and it's not listening to weekly sermons about him. It's the daily grind. It's changing his diapers and getting familiar with his filth. It's swaddling and re-swaddling him to make sure he's warm. It's whispering in his ear to soothe him when he cries. It's rushing him to Egypt to protect him from King Herod. It's losing him in Jerusalem. It's praying to him every day, throughout the day, talking to him about the big things and especially the little things. "Jesus, did you have cowlicks?"

My son Joseph had only been with us a few weeks before I was already able to look at him with different eyes. The answer to the question, "What child is this?" is different each day as I get to know him and love him more and more. It's a miracle that someone born on the opposite side of the world and who wobbled into my life at age four is now the apple of my eye. It was a miracle for Jesus's adoptive father, Joseph, too.

This Christmas, ask the question, "What child is this?" And then every day after, ask the same question. John 21:25 says the world doesn't have enough room for the books that would be written if every story about Jesus was written. I challenge you to experience the miracle of getting to know this mysterious child each and every day. The one who created the stars and who receives the constant praise of angels came to earth and looked up at us with tiny eyes. He's still here.