In the well known Christmas carol, Away in a Manger, there’s this curious line which is added to the second verse which goes like this:
“The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.”

Either the writer of this carol has never heard a cow lowing or has never been close to a newborn baby!
The sound of a cow lowing is a hideous sound to the human ear. In some contexts it can evoke a positive response, like when you visit the countryside and it reaffirms the great escape you’ve just made from the bustling town or city. But when it’s within three feet of you, and you’re fast asleep, that is not a sound you want to hear.

Which brings us to baby Jesus waking up. If you’ve never experienced this firsthand then it’s difficult to describe what it’s like to be woken night after night, every few hours by the sound of your baby crying. Experts say that the frequency of your baby’s cry resonates perfectly with something within the mother’s brain so that she will always hear it and respond, and so she can pick out her own baby’s cry from other babies or sounds.
And to give you a sense of what it might feel like for a mother, consider that one of the interrogation techniques most used by the CIA is sleep deprivation whilst blaring out the sounds of babies crying at high volume into your holding cell. It is a truly unpleasant experience for a mother when her baby is crying for the 50th night in a row, when you’ve only managed to string together 3hrs sleep at a time.

If we accept the premise of this Christmas carol then we are accepting that somehow Jesus wasn’t a ‘normal’ baby. If any of my children hadn’t cried as a normal response, I would have been concerned in case they were ill, or that there might be something else going on.
Jesus was in every way a normal baby. Mary would have breastfed him, changed him when he was wet or had pooped, burped him when he was windy, cuddled him, sang to him, shushed him… whatever it would take to get him to settle to sleep.

This shows us some measure of Mary’s commitment when she said ‘yes’ to the Holy Spirit. We often talk about Mary’s risk in saying yes because she was a virgin and would become pregnant. Dealing with the risks and social stigma of being unmarried and pregnant were significant sacrifices that Mary was willing to make, but we rarely consider the more significant sacrifice that all mothers make with a newborn baby.
To sacrifice sleep night after night. To put your life on hold to prioritise your baby’s needs. To worry as much as delight over such a fragile looking bundle. To endure searing pain whilst breastfeeding because your child must be fed (no bottle feeding 2,000 years ago).

The tragedy which is often unseen is that many mothers suffer greatly with a newborn, especially their first, and they tend to suffer alone. Even as a caring, supportive, helping husband, it is not enough to reach the place where the mother suffers and so in some way it is always destined to be a solitary suffering.
But the suffering is not in vain and there is no human bond quite like that of a mother and child. God knows this which is why part of His gospel message to this world – part of His saving plan – was to model this relationship in Himself; becoming a child in the womb and being nursed and cared for by a mother.

This Advent may we all be thankful for our mothers.
May we know that God entrusted Himself to a mother for our sake and for our salvation.
May we suffer with those who suffer and bless all mothers everywhere, like Mary herself proclaimed in her Magnificat:
“For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48 ESV)