Baby Ralphie, Really?

Christmas wouldn’t be complete if there wasn’t some kind of controversy about, well, something. This year the anti-gun people are upset because a photographer used a baby as the backdrop for Christmas (or holiday) icons. In the background you have the leg lamp (a classic), the bunny suit, and of course the BB gun, all references to a particular movie. The baby, of course, is adorable, and the gun is kind of funny. Is it offensive, bad taste, abusive, or borderline hilarious? I’m sure that the photographer knew there would be an uproar, that’s why he did it. 

The holiday, however, is about another baby. Jesus has been more controversial over the years than any gun toting infant will ever be. The nativity has been thrown out of more public areas than we could count, and the irony is that Jesus came to bring peace. I guess you can’t have guns or peace. I understand the angst over the baby hunter, but why has Jesus been offensive?

The scripture says that the cross is foolish to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews. The world can’t comprehend why God would send his own son to die a miserable death for someone else’s sin. The baby in swaddling cloth represents the innocence that is prepared for the slaughter, and that is untenable. Baby Ralphy can at least defend himself. I guess that’s the point of Jesus. He didn’t want protected. He gave his life freely. The baby swaddled in a food trough felt safe surrounded by family, both earthly and heavenly. Yet, in the darkness the evil one lurks, seeking to consume him. For a moment, the innocence and glory of God meet in the most offensive infant ever to be born.

As believers we embrace the offense, the angst, the guile that the world throws at Emmanuel, God with us. We uplift the miracle of God breaking into the word — Emmanuel, God with us. We accept by faith the reconciliation of a rebellious world to its creator — Emmanuel, God with us. We receive this gift of salvation, the freedom from the bondage of sin — Emmanuel, God with us. So, this Christmas, as unbelievers wrestle with the tension of a holiday commemorating an event they don’t believe in (thus offended), let us show the love and compassion that began with an infant wrapped tightly in swaddling rags.