“This is no time for a child to be born,
with the earth betrayed by war and hate…
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.”
These lines were written by Madeleine L’Engle during the Vietnam War era and they could have just as easily have been written today. But that’s the thing. These words could have been written in nearly any time or place for that is the way of the world. Humanity exists amongst violence and chaos and yet, Christ is born. The tenderness of the Incarnation, of God in flesh in the infant Jesus, is a story worth telling over and over and over again. God chose to enter our fraught human story in this intensely vulnerable way – in the scrap of a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.
L’Engle’s words lament that this earth, betrayed by war and hate, is no place for a child to be born. This world is too broken. And still, God chooses this world, not another, in which to become flesh, fragile flesh in a baby.
“This is no time for a child to be born,
with the earth betrayed by war and hate…
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.”
The poet and prophet Isaiah offers a more hopeful pronouncement when he says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
Although also written at a turbulent time in history, Isaiah’s words focus on peace and good news. These words were directed toward the people of Judah who had been living in Babylonian exile for about 50 years following the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophet speaks into a moment of impending liberation: Babylon’s power is collapsing. Isaiah 52 proclaims that God is acting now. The long exile is ending and God’s people will go home.
Isaiah’s messenger brings good news of peace, announcing God’s reign imagined as strong, sure, and victorious. But in Bethlehem, that reign takes an unexpected form: not a royal decree, but a baby’s first cry. The triumphant voice from the mountains meets the quiet breath of the manger. Isaiah’s vision of power and glory collides with Luke’s story of humility and flesh. The angel’s song to the shepherds echoes Isaiah’s good news of peace, yet this time the message is not about conquest, but about a child.
Theologian Frederick Buechner writes beautifully about this paradox of divine vulnerability in his 1968 book, The Hungering Dark.
He writes,
“The Word became flesh. Incredible.
The same Word that was with God…
entered the world through the pain of birth,
taking the risk that flesh always runs—
of being hurt, laughed at, rejected, and killed.” (End quote)
The incarnation as divine risk… God’s glory is revealed to us in dependency and trust. Think about a newborn baby. They are utterly dependent for their every need. They can’t move, speak, or even hold their heads up. God chose to enter our world just as we each entered the world in the fragile form of a baby. Out of overwhelming love for all of humanity, God chose fragility instead of might or power. There is a lesson in here.
We tell this story over and over because we don’t fully comprehend it. If we did, there wouldn’t be war, or hate, or oppression. This is a lesson so hard for us to hear that it bears repeating until God’s kingdom comes. God’s secret power is vulnerability.
Imagine with me, the “beautiful feet” of Isaiah’s messenger which end up being fulfilled in the shepherds running to tell the news of the angel. Ordinary people, shepherds, become bearers of glory. Over and over again, God entrusts the fragile with divine news. And you know what that means. God entrusts us with divine news. We are the messengers running to share the news.
It is up to us to carry peace where life feels unsafe or uncertain. We must offer tenderness as resistance to fear. Let your vulnerability become a meeting place for God. For the Word, Christ, still becomes flesh, in us. The incarnation of God continues wherever peace is born through compassion, even in a world full of hate and war.
So yes—
this is no time for a child to be born.
And yet, here we are, again and always,
watching Love take the risk of birth.
God still chooses this world.
God still chooses us—fragile, flawed, and beloved—
as the place where the Word becomes flesh.
The light that shone for shepherds still shines in our dark fields.
The song of peace still finds its way into fearful hearts.
And every act of tenderness—every risk of love—
is the Incarnation continuing through us.
So let the refrain ring true today and always:
The Word became flesh—and fragile.
And that is the glory.
That is the good news.
That is the peace we carry into the world.
L’Engle, Madeleine. The Weather of the Heart (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 70.
Frederick Buechner. The Hungering Dark (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), pp. 50–51.