Published at 09:16, Tuesday, 23 December 2008

I’M ON paternity leave. It’s an adventure, with two preschoolers to look after along with a brand new baby.

A new arrival sinks all sorts of plans, especially when he arrives nearly two weeks late.

This time last year I submitted three Christmas meditations to the Whitehaven News, and I was planning to do the same this year.

That plan has been chucked in the nappy bin now. May be I’ll store the titles under “Christmas” in my filing cabinet for next year. The new plan is to rave about my baby son.

I’m holding the black-haired little miracle as I write. He needs to burp, so he’s a bit wriggly. He’s just had his first bath too. It was a bit sooner than we intended, but, well, the nappy doesn’t always catch everything!

Come back with me to two hours after his arrival. It’s the small hours, a couple of Fridays back. I am broadcasting the news on my mobile, pacing the lines of the yellow traffic grid outside the maternity unit of the hospital. “It’s a boy, lots of black hair, a shade over 9 lbs”. Given the hour, only the grandparents in New Zealand didn’t sound sleepy. Everyone was thrilled. I wouldn’t have minded repeating the message all day.

He’s my third child. All three of them, all boys, have been born around this time of year in the build up to Christmas. The birth of Jesus has always been at the back of my mind as each son has arrived.

It seems that God the Father loves broadcasting the news about the birth of his son even more than I do.

He lit the sky up and sent an angel. Spontaneously, a massive army of angels started singing just as the first angel said the words, “He’s wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger”.

In the 2,000 years since, there is probably no story more often told than the one about the baby in the manger. Surely God is behind that, smiling. As a Bible reader with the mindset of a new dad, I know exactly what God wants this Christmas. He wants us to listen more carefully than before to what he tells us about his son, at a church near you or in Matthew and Luke chapters 1 and 2 in a Bible on your shelf.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk