The Death of a Tiny Baby King

When was the last time you held your gaze on a bloody, mangled body? I know. Me neither.

Instinctively our stomachs churn. Our faces contort. We mourn at the sight. And quickly turn away. The rawness is simply too much.

But what about when we see a newborn baby? Ahhhh…we smile, squeal with delight, and wait for our turn to snuggle and kiss those sweet cheeks. We want to drink in the softness and the hope wrapped in newborn flesh.

We can all relate to the difference in our human responses here. This difference is important because it is the conundrum of our Christian faith.

Jesus, once a cuddly, newborn babe, was betrayed, brutally beaten, and bloodied beyond recognition as a man. But He had done nothing wrong. His innocence on the cross was the same innocence He bore in the manger. On the cross though, He was convicted as a criminal.

The innocent man limped and crawled to His death hill, carrying a splintered wooden cross on His mangled back. Men that He formed lovingly in their mothers’ wombs hammered Jesus’ arms and legs to the cruel instrument of execution.

There He hung—naked, tortured. And there He died.

We prefer the much happier tale of a teenaged virgin who bravely birthed a tiny baby king. He was apparently swaddled snuggly in cloths by the time the shepherds arrived to worship Him, as all the storybooks recount.

The sweetness of the Christmas babe being lullabied by His angelic choir is more widely celebrated.  And though our lives are altered every moment by sin and the burden of our human depravity, we settle for Easter being egg dying, pastel patterns, and an afternoon feast of honey ham.

We, the redeemed, have wrongly reversed our affections.

In Surprised by Hope, N. T. Wright wrote, “Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power. We ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them. We should light every candle instead of only some. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke. Take Easter away and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have Christianity.”

So this year, I invite you to ponder the uncomfortable truths of Jesus’ death and burial.

Feel the anxiety of Holy Week, the days leading to the cross. Carry some sadness with you, remembering that your sin, my sin, caused His death.

Allow yourself to feel a hint of His agony, His suffering, His pain. Walk away from the cross on Good Friday with the disciples who were shocked at His death, whose hopes were dashed, whose fears were crippling.

After you’ve contemplated the weight of His gruesome and beautiful death, plan a grand celebration because of the victory in the empty tomb.

I’m thankful for the first whimpers of that hayborn Savior. I’m even more grateful that He gave His dying breath for sinners—for you and me—hanging nailbound on a cross.  His miraculous incarnation for us on Christmas morning would mean nothing without His death and resurrection at Easter’s sunrise. I look forward to celebrating our risen Savior with all of you on Easter morning.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

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(Tracy Lane is a writer with Family Life.  She and her husband Matt and their two wonderful daughters live in Malvern, Pennsylvania.)