I’m a grandfather three times over now. My daughter’s first baby, a boy, is named Joshua. When he was not very old I was holding him one afternoon in the late fall just after his mum had changed his diaper. He was wrapped in a blanket while she decided which outfit she would dress him in, it being around the time the big decision is, “Do I put him in his sleepers now or put another outfit on him and sleepers later?”

While she was contemplating the problem I was doing what most grandparents do – admiring his little toes and thinking how smooth his skin was and generally how perfect babies are (at least right after their parents have changed them…). For some reason I thought about the things he would go through as he grew up, and wondered about what he would do as an adult; what would his profession be? What things, good and bad, would he experience as he got bigger? What injuries would leave marks on his skin as reminders of life? Would he be a well-known community leader? Would he be a father? What would he contribute to society?

I just ruminated on those thoughts, knowing there was no answer to them and no way to predict how the little guy would turn out and after they left that evening, my mind kept churning and I thought about how Mary must have felt holding her son in her arms that first day. She knew he was special, but she couldn’t have known what lay in store for Jesus in his short life. And then I thought some more about Joshua, and, eventually, those thoughts turned into “Babe in a Manger.”