March 16-March 22

The Miraculous Birth of a Baby
Heather Sutherlin
St. Louis, MO

Is there anything in this world more exciting and miraculous than the birth of a baby? Nervous parents and grandparents oohing and ahhing over that first baby, tiny fingers and toes, showers of kisses and hours of quiet cuddles. Suddenly you find that all the months of anxious waiting and anticipation were completely worth it when you are holding that beautiful miracle in your arms.

Well, here in Luke 1 and 2, we see not the result of nine months of waiting, instead the birth of Jesus was the miracle that God's people had been anxiously anticipating since God made his covenant with Abraham centuries earlier. This was it! Their savior had finally arrived and though the people of Israel didn't recognize their king, his arrival did not go entirely unnoticed.

How do you see yourself in this story? Are you like Elizabeth, Mary or Zechariah - each praising God for his faithfulness, even before the promised one has arrived? Or perhaps you're more like the angels or the shepherds - so amazed and inspired by his coming that they hurry to spread the good news around them? Maybe you see yourself in the story of Simeon or Anna - watching, waiting, longing for the day they finally meet their Savior and Lord.

My prayer is for the nameless ones in this story, those not mentioned but always in the background - the neighbors, villagers, the people of Israel. They were the ones who didn't rejoice, didn't recognize him; the hopeless who never delighted in the birth of their king because they never believed it happened. Hopefully this isn't you, but we all know that we still walk among them everyday. We are surrounded by a people who just don't recognize the one who could save them all from their lives of hopeless despair.

Jesus came to bring hope to the hopeless. Let us never tire in telling them the good news! We have a new hope and that is life everlasting. This baby we read about wasn't born because of the love between a husband and a wife, but the love that a creator had for the world he created. That is a powerful love worth sharing.

[Heather Sutherlin is a member of the McKnight Road Church of Christ in St. Louis, Missouri where she works with the women's ministry. She has been married to her husband Graham for 10 years and is the mother of LilliAnn, Grayson and Evie. After graduating from Harding University in 1999 with a degree in Elementary Education, she became a full-time mom.]