“Don’t throw the baby out with the
bathwater!” This commonly known adage urges
that we don’t throw out something good when trying to get rid of something bad.
Back in the days before running
water and showers, families took baths. Imagine
the tedious process of drawing a bath.
It meant bringing bucket after bucket of water into the house, heating
it over a stove or fireplace, and pouring the buckets one by one into the large bathtub.
The first to use the bath were the
hardworking men of the house, then the women of the house, followed by the
children, and finally the baby. By the
time the baby was in the bathtub, the water was dirty! Seems pretty disgusting to us today to wash a
baby in dirty water. But even as absurd
as this seems, even to the people back then, they would NEVER think of dumping the
baby out with the dirty bathwater.
Today’s reading makes me think of this
illustration. The story of scripture can be summed up in God’s relentless
pursuit of a relationship with human beings! As the story unfolds, God choose a
nation, a people, that He would call His own people. He would rescue them, care
for them, nurture them, do miraculous things for them. Yet despite ALL the ways
God would bathe them in His overwhelming love, many of them turned their backs
on Him. They betrayed His love and ran
after other God’s. In fact, they thought
so highly of themselves, they began to think their thoughts and ways were
better than God’s.
Was God hurt by this? Yes.
Did it make Him angry? Yes.
Yet He had a plan. He would not “throw out” the baby with the
bathwater. That baby was the infant,
Jesus, born into a world of obstinate, stiff necked people. His plan meant that not only God’s original
chosen people could be saved, but every person in every nation would have this
gift presented to them! God did this in His relentless pursuit of a relationship with us.
And the angel said to her, “Do not
be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a
son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the
Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father
David, and he will
reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no
end.” Luke 1:30-33
Thank you Lord, for the gift of Jesus,
the one you knew would be born to rescue us all.
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