Good news! Glad news! Great news! Ashton Elise Rudd was born at 10:28 Friday morning – 8 1/2 pounds of healthy baby girl carrying joy and hope like a contagion passed from mother to father to siblings to friends. Donna and I enjoyed the honor of being with Shawna and David just moments before Ashton was delivered and celebrating with all the Rudds, alongside Debbie and Karen Jarrell, barely thirty minutes afterwards. We watched with delight some of the precious “firsts” in her life such as her first introductions to her brothers, Andrew and then Stephen – apparently the first time either of them had ever held a baby or cared to do so. They both did very well, and I am confident they will be outstanding big brothers.
As Donna and I left Shawna’s room with Karen, I listened as the ladies exchanged pleasant “mom” talk mixed with “nurse” talk. We each seemed to share similar feelings. We were, I think, above all thankful – thankful for the hope-filled wonder of new births, thankful for the sweet innocence and absolute dependence newborns display, and thankful for the warmth and nurture babies inspire in families. We were moved by our quiet experience with the Rudds to be thankful for babies, thankful for the birth of our own children, thankful for families like David and Shawna’s who love each other and make such safe havens for babies to grow, and thankful for our own families. And, honestly, as wondrous and sweet as the scene was, I was also thankful that David was a new father, and I was not! I am unequivocally thankful God has graced Ashton Elise with a fine godly Daddy like David, and I am unreservedly grateful we have graduated from our own baby days – at least until grandbabies begin to arrive.
As we drove home from our visit with the Rudds at the hospital, I made some calls to announce Ashton’s birth to our church family. I was thankful for a family of faith who would be so excited to share David and Shawna’s joy. I imagined how we as a church might be a reliable network to support and care for Ashton and encourage her family as they raise her in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” I believe Ashton is the first baby born to a family in our flock since I became your pastor. Soon she will be joined by Robby and Teresa Green’s first child. I wonder how we will love these children and their families. What will we do, what can we do, what can we dream of doing to encourage these parents and to make straight the path of the Lord’s coming into these babies’ lives?
Somewhere between the hospital and home, I received an epiphany. Why, I wondered are the births of babies so precious to us? Moreover, since we are so strangely anointed with new hope and elation when babies are born, why do we not have more babies? So, I announced to Donna that Ashton Elise Rudd would be the inspiration for my article this week, and the theme would be, “Have you had a baby lately?” She has grown somewhat accustomed to my lunacy over the years, so my bride was not unduly alarmed at my pronouncement. She calmly responded, “You mean spiritually, right?”
Precisely because the birth of newborns holds such meaning for us, Jesus used birth to describe the experience every person must have in order “to see the
1. Where do babies come from? God designed us so that when a man and woman love one another and share the most profound intimacy we can know in this flesh, a new life begins. Essentially, when people care enough to give themselves to one another, new life begins. God intends for responsible adults who love one another to produce babies by their union, whose love for one another can reasonably portray the mystery of Christ’s love for His church (Ephesians 5:31-32). Seed provided by the male fertilizes the female egg to produce new life that grows in the womb in anticipation of the birth event.
God intends for His bride to share in love with Him such a divine intimacy (John 17:20-21) that our union with Him will produce new life. The seed of His word should find a ready and earnest welcome in our hearts so that we become, as it were, infused with Gospel potential. Our fellowship should be the soil, the womb wherein lives like spiritual embryos grow and develop and breakthrough to new birth in Christ.
2. In the womb, a baby is safe and nurtured to term. Before birth, that baby does not encounter light or sound, at least not fully, and does not engage in the intimacies of relationships where we hold and are held or we touch and are touched. Do we not agree that womb-life is not all there is to life? Are we not saddened when a baby does not survive the womb to live the life for which parents paint walls, build cribs, buy clothes, and establish college savings accounts?
Similarly, a person who is not yet born again still lives in the dark enjoying temporary security and pleasure. No matter how high the life they seem to live here now, however, if they are not born again, they have not truly lived. The dreams Father has for twice-born people are never realized by those born only once – dreams of light and song and embraces and wonder and foretastes here in this life of the glory and splendor of eternal life at Home.
Have we had any babies lately? Have we enjoyed the sacred joy of gathering with our faith family to celebrate a new birth? Have we seen our love with God make our union with Him a life-producing baby factory? Have we prayed and wept with fervor over the implications for a life that has never left the womb of earth-life, never been born again, and, therefore, never lived?
To the ends of the earth until the end of time!
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