Much focus is given – and righteously so – to the humility and agony of the cross that Jesus endured. The physical and psychological torture. The separation from God the Father. Only when I became a mother, however, did it hit me full force what it cost Christ simply to come to earth as a baby.

One night, when my firstborn was only a few months old, I had just laid her down in her crib when she soiled her diaper in a way that saturated the whole upstairs with the smell! – at the exact same time she managed to spit up her latest feeding all over herself. As I came into her room and looked down at her – lying there in her own bodily fluids – I thought suddenly of Jesus and how really undignified it was for the Son of God to subject Himself to the same condition! It hit my spirit in such a profound way that I ran out of the room in tears.

To ponder the contrast of Heaven and earth for Jesus…you know, if Jesus wanted a glass of water in Heaven, a myriad of angels would be in attendance at His slightest summons. If He had a word to say, the entire realm would be hushed in eager anticipation to hear it. Is there any place Christ can walk in glory where He is not attended by a host of seraphim and cherubim gloriously singing out His praises?

That the Son of God came to earth as a messy, gassy, fussy baby and subjected Himself to the indignity of infancy, and to the awkward, fallible care of human parents, simply boggles my mind.  How humiliating. How very much we are loved!

O come let us adore Him.