newborn babies and newness of life
how holding an infant can school us in the Father's love
golden state baby bust
My home state is in the midst of a “baby bust.” California birth rates are at record lows right now, and some are beginning to panic. After all, as Prof. Dowell Myers at USC put it, “we need [babies] to be future workers, future taxpayers and future consumers because we have way too many baby boomers who are retiring.”
Come on, Californians, we’ve got to get back to procreating! The economic machine needs more cogs for its wheels!
Unfortunately, this dehumanizing utilitarianism contributes to the decline in Golden State progeny. Children are inconvenient, after all. While they may keep the world’s fifth largest economy humming in the future, they’re quite expensive and a drain on individual productivity today.
So it should come as little surprise that my city, San Francisco, has more dogs than children. And, while big cities with dynamic (demanding) economies tend to have a lower percentage of children, this doesn’t account for the dearth of children in the City by the Bay. SF Unified School District has only about 48,000 students, 6% of the population (of over 800,000). Compare that to 1.1 million school children in New York City, 13% of the population (of not quite 8.5 million). In other words, New York has more than double the number of public school children that SF does.
We don’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for youngsters around here.
i get it. that used to be me too
Now, if you know me, you know I have four children and you may be bracing yourself for a lot of self-righteous finger-pointing below. But I don’t get to be self-righteous. Before I met my wife and could conceive of having a child of my own (times four!), I was a single guy, living in New York, utterly uninterested in spending any more time with kids than I had to.
I was interested in deep thoughts, stimulating conversation, big ideas. And I was not interested in humans who could not engage in such things.
In fact, I had never held a baby before I was 24 and got to hang out with the little boy of my dear friends, Toby and Rebekah.
I remember when I first got to meet this little guy. Here was a tiny little human, who came from two people I deeply loved and respected, and he was just cute and happy and a joy to be around. Kathy and I had been married for just a few months, but I thought to myself, “this is awesome! This little guy is awesome! I could totally do this.”
Now I’m the guy who gets wide-eyed looks from my Bay Area neighbors who are like, “Four? How do you do that?”
babies bring us closer to God
One of my favorite parts of my job as a pastor is getting to visit families who have just had a new baby. It’s not just that all my kids are well beyond that stage. It is a privilege to meet, hold, and pray blessing over newborns.
the beauty of a brand new human is a holy thing
I’ve had lots of opportunities to do so. I like to joke that my ministry carries a special fertility blessing along with it. Though I’ve always pastored relatively small congregations (~100 people), there have been regular baby waves throughout my ministry. One year there were 9 babies born in my church. Then 8. The largest wave (tsunami!) was 11. The church where I now serve is in the midst of welcoming 10 new babies among us. There’s a lot of love in these churches.
The beauty of a brand new human is a holy thing. I imagine God designed infants to be tiny icons of the newness of life He has given us in Christ. Everything about a baby is new. The sweet smell. The tiny hands that clutch your fingers. The helpless innocence.
Every new thing they do is a miracle. When they make eye contact. Their first smile. First laugh. First tooth. The first time they roll over. Even holding their head up during tummy time is cause for celebration!
To be clear, this is not an exercise in sentimentality. One of the worst things about church in the U.S. is the tendency to idolize the family and turn teaching on domestic life into a Hallmark movie. It is dishonoring to God to make Christianity a set of moral principles by which to raise happy kids (who can contribute economically).
Jesus was countercultural when He told His disciples, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14). Children weren’t sentimentalized in His culture; they were weak humans, unable to work and contribute to the feeding of the household. In that sense, ancient attitudes toward kids weren’t all that different from the Bay Area norm.
Christ subverted that approach, welcoming children in love. He welcomed children because He is a child of His Father. And He invites all of us to be children too.
When I get to hold a helpless babe in my arms for the first time, I don’t think Precious Moments or family values. In that moment, I am too overwhelmed by the invitation from God the Father to see this little one with His love. I’m too busy being captivated by the faint glimpse I’m catching of the Father’s love for His children—including me.
As I gaze on this new person in my arms, I am invited to participate in the Father’s love for them. I am incapable of loving anyone with the immensity of God’s love. But I can take part in it according to my ability, remembering that “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16).
Loving this non-contributing new member of society is so like God’s loving of me and my meager minuscule capacity to contribute anything to Him. Spiritually, I am little more than an infant, utterly dependent. I offer nothing to God. He gives me everything; in love, He gives me Himself.
“What do you have that you did not receive” (1 Cor. 4:7)? Nothing. Nothing at all. All is grace. All is gift.