Christmas is 20 days away, coaxing us to think again about the baby of Bethlehem. How did the Trinity decide together on such an outlandish scheme to bring salvation to mankind? Divinity reduced to a newborn? And even more incredible, reduced to a single cell within the human body of a regular woman?

But that became the plan for one important reason: Jesus wanted to do everything we did, to be tempted like us, struggle like us, feel like us, and live with our limitations. Amazingly, he wanted to be just like us.

But why?

One reason was to teach us what a well-lived human life should look like. Another, and of course the most important reason, was to save our souls, a rationale we still can’t understand but enormously appreciate.

I love thinking about Jesus as an infant, then a toddler and a little child. Surely he had an ordinary childhood relationship with his mother, and she did for him all the things we moms did/do for our children. Then as he grew, he lived a model life in front of relatives, friends, and neighbors. Through Scripture’s pages, he became our model, too.

But when did his teaching begin? Was it at age 30 at the start of his ministry? Or well before that? Is it possible his choice to become a born-baby was meant to teach us something, too?

My mom loved kids, preferring their company to that of adults. I think one of the reasons was her ongoing expectation that they could teach her something, even the newborns. She watched them closely, sometimes talking to them as if they were the Lord’s emissaries of wisdom.

“Tell me about God,” she’d say, focusing on the squinty eyes of a newborn who was still a year away from answering with words. But words or not, Mom expected to learn. And she absolutely loved the idea that our Savior was born a baby “in the usual way.” He didn’t arrive to save us dressed in the armor of a warrior. He didn’t inherit a throne through royalty. He didn’t conquer with guns or swords. Instead he entered the scene unremarkably… just by being born.

Mom used to tell us, “When you recite John 3:16, think about the word ‘begotten.’ God gave us his ‘only begotten Son.’ It means ‘born of parents,’ and Jesus was born just like you, helpless, dependent, needy.”

In the ordinariness of his infancy, she wanted us to learn something. She hoped we’d see that our Savior was approachable in his humanity rather than intimidating in his divinity. Years later we would learn the difference between him and us, of his sinlessness and our sin. But as children, she wanted us to relate to, and learn from, our common infancies.

Because Jesus willingly came in that humble way, we love him all the more.

“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)