So God has shown his love in a practical and personal way that all can understand and to which all can respond, by coming to us as a babe.  He has taken us not only as we are but as we are at our weakest and simplest.  He came to us as a babe because babyhood is most easily understandable by all he came to save – by men, women and little children alike.

We know how the sight of a peaceful infant brings a smile of tenderness to us all, whatever be our age or lot in life. So, by his helpless infancy he has sought not only to tell us of his love but also to coax from us our love in return.  That is why the Christmas narrative, centring as it does upon the winsome Babe, makes its appeal to many who do not profess or practise the Christian Faith.

For us who are Christians, as we contemplate the contrast between the eternal glory which God the Son laid aside, and the lowliness and poverty of the crib which he embraced for our sakes, then our hearts should indeed go out to him in love and joy for, in St Paul’s words, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich (see 2 Corinthians 8:9).