(You may listen to this song here.)
If Christ had not been born a baby,
Fully human and yet still fully God;
Had He not lived and died as a man,
Then how would God know what we feel?
If Christ had never been tempted,
If He had never suffered grief,
Had He never known the pain of rejection,
Then how would He know how I feel?
If Christ had never been lonely,
If He had never dreaded death,
Had He never known physical suffering,
Then how would He know how I feel?
If Christ had never been lied about,
If He have never suffered loss,
Had He never known emotional anguish,
Then how would He know how I feel?
If Christ had not been born a baby,
Fully human and yet still fully God;
Had he not lived and died as a man,
Then how would God know what we feel?
About this Song:
One of people’s hardest problems about accepting Christianity is making sense of Jesus being “as fully God as if He weren’t human and as fully human as if He weren’t God.” We rational human beings can’t–pun not intended–conceive of a baby whose Father was God Himself and whose mother was teen-aged Mary–a human being. How was that, uh, humanly possible?
That’s the problem, isn’t it? We can only look at this question (and try to explain it) in human terms. And it doesn’t work.
How many times have I acknowledged that–if I could understand God–He wouldn’t be big enough or powerful enough, loving enough or merciful enough, righteous enough or enough of anything good to be worthy of my worship and adoration. And He certainly wouldn’t be someone I would want to put my life into the control of.
But that raises another question: As perfect as God is and always has been–in every way–how could He possibly understand everything about us human beings? He created us to be perfect, but sin did a dastardly number on that. How could He understand our loneliness, our dread of death, our physical suffering, and all of the other problems mankind suffers?
That very question is why I value and accept Jesus not just as my Lord and Savior, but as a model of how to live successfully in spite of every possible human hardship I could encounter–and then some. What problems will ever pop up that Jesus didn’t face and overcome (including death itself) 2,000 years ago?
I can’t explain the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). Honestly, that very concept is as mind-boggling as anything I’ve ever tried to understand. But what I believe–and this is extremely important to me–is Jesus as God the Son returned to His Father’s side after His resurrection and (so to speak) clued God the Father (God the Father is spirit) in on what being human really felt like. I picture Jesus telling God, “You’ve never experienced that kind of self-doubt, but I have. Believe me, that fellow needs Your help getting through it.”
Maybe that’s why Christians typically pray “In Jesus’ Name.”
Those thoughts have helped me over the years, and I hope they’ll help you, too.
What do you think? Please leave a comment.
You can find a free lead sheet for “Born a Baby” here.
Look for me again next Wednesday. Better still, subscribe to receive these weekly posts by email.
Best regards,
Roger
Links you might be interested in:
As I Come Singing. . . 