I’m not sure the first time I saw the warning - perhaps the early 2000’s - but I have have always found that “Baby on Board” warning label curious. While many people over years have had their fun with it, I appreciate the sincere desire to affect driving habits for the sake of the little ones.

And, why shouldn’t we? I think we could all agree babies are important!

Now, what doesn’t get lost on me, is the implicit expectation of that sticker: a child’s presence is enough to effect change - even going 70 on I-5! You see, the first person to print that sticker understood the power of the presence of a child. Just knowing a baby was in the vicinity causes an adult to shift their behavior.

Old men talk like babies, rebellious teens turn down music, grownups sanitize their language, the channel changes from Football or MMA to Paw Patrol...people just change when children are present!

Now, 2000 years ago, God fulfilled a strategic promise to change humanity by piercing the cold-deadness of the human heart. His plan required a cross, a grave, and an empty tomb - but it all started with a child.

See, the virgin will become pregnant

and give birth to a son,

and they will name him Immanuel,[a]

which is translated “God is with us.”

~Matthew 1:23

Christian Standard Bible

“God with us”

The strategic, history making, soul-shaking movement of God began with a child. God Himself taking on the vulnerable flesh of a child to be “with us.”

In the weeks leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus, let me encourage you to consider not only all the ways that a child may change people, or the historical significance of Jesus’ birth in Palestine so many years ago - let me encourage you to prayerfully consider the significance of the God of the universe coming as a child - and then promising His presence with you today. 

While a child may change the climate of a room - this child changed everything and still changes today.

You see the very real power of Christmas is not the “hushing power” of a baby - but the present power of Jesus with us today.

Jesus,

This Christmas season, may we take the time to simply bask in the gift of Your presence and the change that it always brings in and through us if we let it. Amen.