We talk about Jesus being born and who He was born to be for us.

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Three in One, who has come to be born as a child so that we might have eternal life. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

There is a kind of scandal at the heart of Christmas.
That scandal is this: God is born as a baby.

Most of the time, we don’t really let that sink in. We don’t let it fully land or hammer its way into our heads, because there’s something deeply uncomfortable about the idea of God being a baby. So we move through Christmas surrounded by nativity scenes, and we look at God lying in the manger and say, “Oh, isn’t that cute? Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that glorious?”

We wrap the scene in beauty. If you’ve ever seen nativity art, it’s almost always enhanced—light streaming down from the star, a soft glow coming off the baby Jesus, sometimes even Jesus sitting upright, which I’ve never seen a newborn do. All of those artistic touches are, in a way, our escape hatch from the scandal of Christmas.

Because we’re used to thinking about God in terms of His omnis—His attributes.

God is omnipresent: everywhere at once.
God is omnipotent: all-powerful.
God is omniscient: all-knowing.

And yet, when Jesus is born, those assumptions are disrupted.

Take omnipresence. When Jesus is born, He is not everywhere. He is in one place—Bethlehem—probably in a small side room, laid in a manger. So specific, in fact, that the angels tell the shepherds exactly where to find Him. They don’t say, “You’ll just see Jesus everywhere.” They say, “You’ll find Him there.”

Or omnipotence. God is the creator and sustainer of the world, yet when Jesus is born, He is a baby. And I don’t know how much time you’ve spent around newborns, but “all-powerful” is not a word we usually use. Babies can’t even lift their heads. You have to support them carefully so their heads don’t flop around.

Then there’s omniscience—the one we’re most reluctant to let go of. We tend to assume that even if Jesus wasn’t omnipresent or omnipotent as a baby, surely He still knew everything. But Scripture won’t let us hold onto that either. Jesus had to learn. He had to learn how to speak Hebrew, Aramaic, even Greek. He had to grow in wisdom. He truly set aside those divine prerogatives in order to become one of us.

And if that weren’t scandal enough, today’s Gospel reading adds another layer.

We hear about Herod. We hear about the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem. We hear about children, two years old and under, put to the sword because a frightened king feels threatened.

And we ask, “What on earth, God?”
Jesus has been born. The good news has arrived. Shouldn’t everything be set right now?

But it isn’t.

Even the Son of God is so vulnerable that God must warn His parents: Run. Flee. Go to Egypt. There is no divine display of power. No angelic army wiping out Herod’s troops. Just a family escaping in the night.

That, too, is scandal.

Because that’s not the baby we want for Christmas.

The comedian Nate Bargatze has a joke about how boys and girls think differently about gifts. He says girls often want baby dolls, while boys want action figures—Transformers, G.I. Joe, something ready to fight. And then he notes that when you grow up, many girls actually do get the baby. But no boy grows up and gets a Transformer—no one standing next to him with a sniper rifle ready to take out all his enemies.

And in some ways, that’s what we want from God.
Not a baby—but a warrior.

We want someone who will eliminate our enemies, fix our problems, and assert power.

But God says, “I have a different plan.”

Instead, He sends His Son into the world to be powerless.
To be located in one place.
To need to learn.

Because that’s our story.

We are finite.
We are limited.
We are powerless—especially when it comes to saving ourselves.

If salvation were up to us, it wouldn’t happen. We would be like a newborn trying to do a sit-up. It just wouldn’t work.

So Jesus comes to live our story fully and perfectly. And because He lives it perfectly, He can take our place on the cross. His death becomes our hope. Because He died, our sins are forgiven. Because He rose, we know that we too will rise.

But that creates a personal scandal for us.

We like to imagine ourselves as powerful, knowledgeable, self-sufficient. And God comes to us and says, “Your weakness is where I choose to dwell.” I am not found in your accomplishments. I am found in forgiveness. I am found in baptismal water poured over your head. I am found in bread and wine placed into your hands.

Your greatness does not come from what you achieve.
It comes from what I give.

And because Jesus was destined for resurrection glory, so are you. Because He was born as your brother, you can call God your Father. And the Spirit within you cries out, “Abba!”—like a child who knows exactly where to go for everything he needs.

So as you go out into this week, know this:
You are finite.
You are not omniscient.
You are not omnipotent.

And that is precisely what God came to redeem.

And so, as you go out into this week, know that you are finite. Know that you are not omniscient. Know that you are not omnipotent. And that’s something that God came to redeem. That’s how God created you. And that is who God sent his son to be so that he could redeem your life and make you ready for the resurrection. Amen.