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Do you remember when it was that you first realized your parents were people, that they actually were human, just like you? I remember talking with our girls when they were still very young, telling them of something that happened to me when I was a boy. They looked at me surprised and said, "No, Daddy! You weren't ever a boy! You're a daddy!"

So it seems when we are very young. One person has written that "Mommy is the name for God on the lips of little children." When we are toddlers "Mommy!" and "Daddy!" and "God!" all mean roughly the same thing. They are the ones who take care of us. They are always there. In fact, as far as we know, they have always been there.

But one day we cross that threshold past innocence and find out that our parents are real people too, just like us.

Calvin Miller said it happened to him on the first day of school. His teacher took him to her desk, saying that she needed his help to fill out some forms. "Calvin," she said, "what's your mother's name?"

"Momma."

"No," she replied. "That's not her name."

"Yes, it is!" he retorted. "That's what we call her!"

"All right, Calvin," she said quietly. "I understand. You call her 'Momma,' but she has another name too."

"No, she doesn't!"

The teacher was very patient. "Look, Calvin, 'Momma' is what she is, and 'Momma' is what she does, but 'Momma' isn't her name!"

Young Calvin was mightily disturbed. He said, "You're wrong! And when I get home from school I'm gonna tell my Momma what you said!"

So he did. When he burst through the door he ran to his mom and said, "Momma! The teacher said that you have another name besides 'Momma'!"

Then he was stunned, because his mother replied, "It's true, Calvin. My name is Ethel!"

Calvin was thunderstruck. Ethel! He says it sounded so obscene to him at the time, like she should have a twin sister named "Regular" or "Unleaded"!

His mother wasn't finished. "I have a middle name too," she said. "It's Faye."

Then came the most astounding revelation: "And my last name is Miller."

Miller! Wow, thought young Calvin. That's my name too! She's got my name! She's just like me!

In that single moment of insight Calvin Miller's world was turned upside down. Here was his mother: parent and protector, all-knowing and all-seeing ... He went to bed at night and she was still awake. He got up in the morning and she was already making his breakfast. She could heal all his hurts, make everything he wanted to build, and answer all his questions. She was God for him!

And then, suddenly, in one brief instant, she became human. "She's got my name!"

That is a powerful image of what Paul writes about in Romans 16:25-27. He talks about the "mystery hidden for long ages past" now revealed in Jesus. And the world stands thunderstruck with little Calvin, quivering while everything it knew is turned upside down.

Think of Mary. She's only a little wisp of human flesh, maybe in her early or middle teen years. She has a name, but in her world there is Someone who doesn't have a name. He is the "Eternal One." He is the "Master of the Universe." He is the "Lord of all Creation." Her little existence owes all to him. Every morning she says a prayer to him. Every evening she chants her Jewish thanks to him. But she never mentions his name.

The rabbis say he has a name, but no one must ever speak it. His name is holiness itself. When they read the sacred scriptures and come to the four-letter word that identifies him they skip over it altogether, or they merely say, "Adonai." Adonai isn't a name. It's a term that means "He who is Lord over me."

But one day little Mary, daughter of David, has a visitor -- a strange and overwhelming visitor named Gabriel. He is a messenger from the Nameless One. He tells her that Adonai will touch her womb, that the Nameless One will be born from her very body! And, he says, you are to give him a name like yours: "Jesus, son of David!"

Suddenly the Nameless One has a name! The Powerful One becomes powerless: a child, just like her! The Eternal One steps into time, into her family, into her small world! "Hey! He's just like me! He's got the same name that I do!"

No wonder that Mary sings: "The Mighty One has done great things for me!" (Luke 1:49). She talks about those who have tried to be God through their wealth, or their military might, or their encyclopedic wisdom. They never succeeded. Instead, God did a surprising thing. In the eternal mystery of the ages, according to Paul, God took off his robes. He set aside his crown. He stepped out of the shadows of eternity. He stripped himself of his authority and jumped into her womb. Into her weakness. Into her world.

And he took her name. The name of her family. The name of her world.

At Christmastime we have to relearn a very old concept in a very new way. It is the concept of power, something that has been around from the beginning of time. Most often we use the idea of power in one of three ways.

Power As Position

Sometimes power means "position." A ruler has power because he has position. If he loses his position, he loses his power. If he keeps his position, no one can question his power.

Five hundred years ago Machiavelli wrote the book about that kind of power. He called it The Prince, and every modern ruler has a copy at his or her bedside. Know your position, cautions Machiavelli. Keep your position! Use your position!

Shakespeare said it as well in the drama of King Lear. Lear is growing old, and he wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. But once the paring is done they laugh at him. They scoff when he comes calling and cast him out like a beggar. While he was king, they bowed to him. But when he gave up his position, they took him for a fool.

So it is in our world. Will our children remember the name Mikhail Gorbachev? Once he was one of the strongest men in the world, President and dictator of the Soviet Union. He controlled nuclear armaments. He demanded the surrender of nations. He forced his will on the masses of Eastern Europe. Yet on January 1, 1992, his position ceased to exist, and he became just another petty human being.

Several years ago Robert Ringer captured the best-seller market of the business world with his blueprint for success called Winning Through Intimidation. That is the power we know all too well: the power that forces itself upon us; the power that strikes down from above; the power that grabs hold of our calendars and our wallets and our psyches, and tells us when to jump, and how much to pay, and who we ought to be.

Of course, God is at the top of the heap. He says, "Jump!" and all we are supposed to do is ask, "How high?" He says, "Move!" and all we are supposed to ask is, "How far?" He says, "Do this!" and all we are supposed to ask is, "How long?" God has the power of position, and until somebody else comes along to topple his throne, he has things sewn up pretty tight.

But then Gabriel comes to Mary, and the mystery of the ages rewrites the dictionary. God doesn't have position anymore. He becomes a helpless baby.

Power As Performance

There is a second way in which people understand power, and that is performance. Power often means the ability to do something better than anyone else.

Rudyard Kipling explained it well in the poem he wrote for his young son. He wrote:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;

If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!


Now, those are all good sentiments. But they are also a definition of power, one which seems good, but which can strike back and hurt us. If you can do this ... If you can do that ... If you've got it in you ...

Someone tells of a stirring speech brought to a powerful conclusion by Kipling's poem. The speaker challenged the crowds: "If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything in it...!" And in the hushed silence that followed, a weak voice called up to him from below, "But what if you can't?!"

What if you can't? Mary herself couldn't. She was in no position to consider herself powerful. Nor did she have the ability to perform in such a way that she should ever be Queen of the Universe. What if you can't?

Harry Emerson Fosdick told the tale of most of our lives in a sermon he called "Handling Life's Second Bests." He asked how we are to live, those of us who never get to be on the school honor roll. Those of us who will never match Arnold Schwarzenegger for strength or Julia Roberts for beauty. Those of us who will never be as fast as Carl Lewis, or as rich at Donald Trump, or as musical as Yo-Yo Ma, or as quick-witted as Martin Short. What about those of us who will never be as graceful as Baryshnikov, or as articulate as Peter Jennings, or as insightful as Northrop Frye? What about us?

If power is in performance this world will continue to be a bleak place for most of us. Paul knows that.

Power As Partnership

Some think of power as position, and some think of it as performance. Others of us think of power as partnership. Power is a trade-off: I do something for you and you do something for me. The United States has the industrial base and Mexico has the labor force, so we trade with one another to achieve something greater than either of our nations could on their own.

It's John Locke's Social Contract. It's the ideal of democracy tried in its many dozens of forms. It even crops up in our religion. Some say, "God helps those who help themselves." I remember it in another form in a song we used to sing: "Reach out to Jesus; he's reaching out to you!"

Power is a partnership. It's not what you know but who you know. Maybe it seems like that comes true at Christmas, when Gabriel takes Mary aside and says to her, "Don't be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God!"

On the surface that seems like a marvelous partnership. But when we start making deals with God, we had better be careful what kind of partnership we devise. I was sitting in an airport some time ago, talking with a man from Canada about the North American Free Trade Agreement. He gave me his whole political outlook, and I didn't even have to pay him for it! He said it was all well and good for Canada and the U.S. to have a free trade agreement, but didn't people realize that when an elephant and a mouse sleep together in the same bed it means something very different to each of them? If the mouse rolls over, the elephant never notices. But if the elephant rolls over ...

So it is between God and us. He may come to us. He may share his power with us. But a partnership it isn't. To use Halford Luccock's words, "God helps those who cannot help themselves!"

Power As Presence

So what is this mystery of power that Paul writes about if it isn't position or performance or partnership? The new definition of power is this: presence. It is the power that doesn't force or coerce or dominate or demand. It is the power that becomes a little baby.

First-time parents learn very quickly that a new baby has great power. They feel the presence of the baby, and everything in their world changes. The baby is of them, and from them, and always with them. But the baby becomes them as well.

Suddenly the Nameless One has a name. He's just like us. Not over us. Not on top of us. Not pushing us. He is one of us. This is the mystery of the ages that not even the prophets of the Old Testament understood as they pointed ahead to the day of the Lord's coming.

Chuck Colson pictured it well. He was visiting Humaita Prison in Brazil, renowned in the world as a shining example of power. From most prisons 75 percent of those released will return. Yet of the 350 inmates at Humaita, only four percent ever commit another crime resulting in incarceration!

That was not always the case. Years ago Humaita Prison was known for its brutality and indecency. No one jailed there remained human. Cruel power of force ruled. Those who would not be clubbed into submission were thrown into the tiny isolation chamber at the heart of the prison: no lights, no furniture, no toilets or wash facilities. Sometimes that cell was even used as a death chamber: inmates were pushed and piled into it until they crowded and suffocated.

But two decades ago a group of Brazilian Christians took over Humaita Prison. Now Chuck Colson was invited to tour the facility. "Would you like to meet the prisoner in the isolation cell?" they asked him. Although his stomach tightened, he agreed.

The guard turned the key in the lock and pulled at the heavy iron door. He stepped aside and Chuck Colson went in. There were only four things in that little room: a table with fresh-cut flowers on it; a carved figure of Jesus on the wall; and a banner strung above the crucifix proclaiming: "Estamos Juntos." "We are together."

The prisoner in the cell at the heart of Humaita Prison was Jesus. He had a name like those of the other prisoners. He shared in the struggles of their lives. He was imprisoned like them. And it is his presence among us that gives us power to change our lives. This is the mystery of the proclamation of Paul's gospel of Jesus Christ.

I remember reading Herman Melville's great story Moby Dick years ago. The spiritual struggles in the soul of Captain Ahab caught my tender imagination. In the great night of blackness before the final confrontation with the great whale, Captain Ahab stands out on the deck of the ship. A storm rages around them, and there is a sense of divine presence that charges the atmosphere.

Captain Ahab raises his eyes to the skies and yells a prayer: "I know thee, thou clear spirit...." He beats his fist on his chest and challenges, "Come to me as power, and there is something here which to the last gasp of this earthquake life will resist thee!" Then he shudders and sobs, "But come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee!"

This is the power of Mary's child. This is the presence of the Nameless One born with a name like ours. He holds no position over our heads. He makes no pretense about having great performance abilities. He doesn't bother with wheeling and dealing in partnerships.

He comes in the lowest form of love: a baby in the arms of a mother. And we, who wheel and deal with power, are caught, like Paul, by surprise. "To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen."