How Motherhood Changed My Christmas

One of my absolute favorite traditions this time of year is the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Dating back to the 1800s, this service alternates between familiar Christmas carols and Bible readings, beginning in the Old Testament and progressing through the New Testament, that relate the story of humanity’s fall and redemption through the Christ Child. Originating in the Anglican tradition, it is now a popular format observed across Christian denominations. The most famous, of course, is the Christmas Eve service at King’s College in Cambridge, UK. Anyone who has tuned into its yearly broadcast from the BBC knows the iconic way this service begins: the clear tone of a lone boy chorister singing the first verse of Once In Royal David’s City.

Once in Royal David’s city

Stood a lowly cattle shed

Where a mother laid her baby

In a manager for a bed.

Mary was that mother mild,

Jesus Christ her little child.

Then the organ swells and the rest of the choir of men and boys joins in with the next verse:

He came down to earth from heaven

Who is God and Lord of all

And his shelter was a stable

And his cradle was a stall.

With the poor and mean and lowly

Lived on earth, our Savior holy.

Like all good Christmas Carols, it tells the story of Christmas. More than that, it goes on to relate the true miracle of Christmas and the redemption of the world that Christ’s birth heralds and brings. I’ve sung these words more times than I can count. Thanks to multiple Christmas Eve and Day services over the years, I’ve heard dozens and dozens of Christmas sermons, much more than my 29 years worth. I still know every single line to the Nativity Pageant that I and the other kids at my childhood church put on every single Christmas Eve. In short, Christmas is a story I know inside out — and still every year I marvel in wonder at the miracle it is. This year, though, a new aspect caught my attention: the figure of Mary.

It’s no shock that Mary’s role jumps out at me this year. Like her, I’m a new mother, marveling at my son’s life, at his smiles, his giggles, his attempts to crawl and befriend the (ever-skeptical) cats. Somehow, being a mom makes the nativity story so much more real. At the same time, it makes Christ’s birth even more miraculous and absurd than previously realized.

With each passing day, I see my son grow stronger and more at ease in the world around him. Yet for all his growth, he is entirely dependent on Austin and me for his survival, and he will be for years. Without us, Baby J wouldn’t have clothes, clean diapers, baths, or food. Honestly, he wouldn’t be able to sleep without us gently putting him down. This was how God chose to become manifest in the world around us, as a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manager. For all the years I’ve heard those words, I never appreciated the utter insanity of them until watching my own helpless, precious boy sleeping in his bassinet. God chose not only to live among us, to experience our joys and our sorrow but to be as vulnerable and weak as every other person who has entered the world before, entirely dependant on their mother’s loving embrace.

Similarly, I never truly appreciated Mary until now. I knew that she was Jesus’ mother, but until I became a mother myself, I didn’t know what that meant. How could I? Now I can imagine Mary’s nine months growing her baby within her, anxious about whether the baby moved enough, worried about the baby’s birth. I know her eagerness to meet her child and her bliss at finally holding him in her arms. For all the times I’ve heard the phrase ‘a mother’s love,’ only now do I truly know what it means — and the idea that a young woman like myself (let’s be real, a woman probably 10+ years younger than myself) loved the Lord of all creation with such a love, is crazy.

When I met my son for the first time — I, euphoric and a bit high on the meds, him howling at the bright, cold world around him, utterly dependent on my care — I was in a similar form of weakness. Numb from above the waist down, my abdomen quickly being stitched back together by doctors, I was entirely at the mercy of the op team for my survival. While a C-section is an extreme way to bring a child into the world, pregnancy and childbirth (whether natural, C-section, medicated, induced, etc.) are inherently vulnerable states for both the mother and the child, and in this state of weakness, a deeply powerful bond of trust and love is forged.

Since our son is the youngest baby at our church, he played the Baby Jesus in the nativity pageant, while Austin and I took on the roles of Joseph and Mary. As I sat in front of the altar, rocking my very squirmy son in my arms (he’s on the verge of crawling and loves nothing more than moving!) and the cast gathered around, and we all joined in singing the familiar words of Silent Night, tears began to leak from my eyes. It wasn’t the first time I’ve cried at Christmas carols; carols have made me cry for years now. I’ve thought nothing could so clearly capture the tender miracle of God’s love as the hymns relating the story of his birth. Nothing, at least, until I became a mother, holding her son next to a prop manger surrounded by child angels, shepherds, and kings all bringing the familiar tale to life.

The memory of my own son’s newborn days still fresh in my mind, I can easily imagine Mary watching her son sleep that first night, as the shepherds appeared to worship him. To her, he was the Savior, as the angel Gabriel told her, but he was also her son, whom she went through the harrowing states of pregnancy and birth to meet, whom she loved with the fierce passion only a mother can. While the Lord of all creation comes to us as weak and defenseless as my son, he also came into this world as beloved as my child is. And that love is at the heart of Christmas — because God came into this world because we are so beloved by him. The relationship between Christ and Mary is an echo, a sign of the love Christ has for his creation. This is the great paradox, the great mystery, the great miracle. That God chose to be human, to be weak, but also to be loved. It reminds us that this relationship of love and beloved, of parent and child, of creator and creation, is at the heart of who God is. With that, the words of another Christmas carol come to mind:

What child is this who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping?

Whom angels great with anthems sweet, while shepherds flocks are keeping.

This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing.

Haste, haste, to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.