The Baby Changed Everything

There is a wonderful story by Bret Harte called THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP.  Roaring camp was supposed to be the meanest, toughest mining town in all the west.  More murders, more thefts---it was a terrible place inhabited entirely by men, and one woman who tried to serve them all.  Her name was Cherokee Sal.  She died while giving birth to a baby.  Well, the men took the baby, and they put her in a box with some old rags under her.  When they looked at her, they decided that didn't look right, so they sent one of the men eighty miles to buy a rosewood cradle.  He brought it back, and they put the rags and the baby in the rosewood cradle.  And the rags didn't look right there.  So they sent another of their number to Sacramento, and he came back with some beautiful silk and lace blankets.  And they put the baby, wrapped around with those blankets into the cradle.  It looked fine until someone happened to notice that the floor was so filthy.  So these hardened, tough men got down on their hands and knees, and with their hardened and callused hands they scrubbed that floor until it was very clean.  Of course, what that did was to make the walls and the ceiling and the dirty windows without curtains look absolutely terrible.  So they washed down the walls and the ceiling, and they put curtains on the windows.  And now things were beginning to look as they thought they should.  But of course, they had to give up a lot of their fighting, because the baby slept a lot, and babies can't sleep during a brawl.  So the whole temperature of the Roaring Camp seemed to go down.  They used to take her out and set her by the entrance to the mine in her rosewood cradle so they could see her when they came up. Then somebody noticed what a dirty place that was, so they planted flowers, and they made a very nice garden there.  It looked quite beautiful.  And they would bring her, oh, shiny little stones and things they would find in the mine.  But when they would put their hands down next to hers. their hands looked so dirty.  Pretty soon the general store was all sold out of soap and shaving gear and perfume and those kinds of things...for you see, the baby changed everything.

Those of us who have had the gift of a baby know the changes that can bring, but nothing like the changes Bethlehem's baby brought to our world and lives.  For when that baby comes into your life, he slips into every crack and crevice.  He touches every part of our lives.  He washes us clean and makes us new.  He reaches down deep and draws us close to our Heavenly Father.  For from the manger is fashioned a cross of punishment for sin--ours.  That cute little baby of Bethlehem died one day 33 years later--and that changed everything.