baby jesus beautiful photos: Dear Baby Jesus Ricky Bobby

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Dear Baby Jesus Ricky Bobby Biography
Not too long ago, I was struck by what I think is one of the biggest barriers when it comes to knowing God
actually being able to know this One that we sing about tonight. It hit me from a very unusual source, and so,
I’m going to ask you to bear with me for a moment while I tell you about that.
I was going to get some work done, but it was a trip, and there were two children who were seat-kickers behind
me, so I decided that no matter what movie they were showing on this flight, I was going to watch it. They
showed a deeply theological film called “Talladega Nights,” about a racecar driver named Ricky Bobby. Ricky
Bobby is not exactly the brightest bulb on the chandelier. Surprisingly, the movie raised a fairly deep
theological point.
At one point in the film, Ricky Bobby prays. In our day, it is kind of unusual for a movie to show anyone
praying, and this was not just a generic prayer. It was actually a prayer in Jesus’ name. That was kind of
interesting in itself. But what was really unusual about it was that he prayed it to the “Little Baby Jesus.” It was
kind of a goofy prayer:
Dear tiny Baby Jesus in Your tiny baby crib, with Your tiny little hands and feet, watching Your tiny
little Einstein Baby Development videos, use Your tiny little superpowers to keep me winning on the
racetrack. Amen.
You didn’t think you were going to hear about this on Christmas Eve, did you?
His wife, who was marginally sharper than Ricky Bobby, said to him:
You know, I don’t think you are supposed to pray to the little “Baby” Jesus, because He grew up and
became a man, and I think you’re supposed to pray to “Grownup” Jesus.
Ricky Bobby says:
I don’t want to pray to that Jesus. I like praying to the little “Baby” Jesus, because it makes me feel good
just to think about Him being a little, tiny infant. So when you’re praying, you can pray to the
“Grownup” Jesus, or the “Teenage” Jesus, or the “Bearded” Jesus, or whomever you want to, but I like
“Christmas” Jesus. I like a cuddly little baby Jesus. I’m going to pray to Him.
What struck me as I was watching this movie is that, ironically enough, one of the great barriers we face when it
comes to entering into the reality of God is that we all tend to replace the real Jesus with whatever Jesus we
want Him to be. We might want to replace Him with the little baby Jesus, because it makes us feel good at
Christmas time just thinking about a little infant in a manger. We don’t think of that little infant as placing
demands on people or confronting them. He’s just kind of sweet just lying there.
Or, sometimes we might want to pray to the “Bail-out” Jesus. I don’t have to serve Him; I just get to use Him to
help me get out of trouble.
Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
950 Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025 650.323.8600
Or, it might be the “Part-time” Jesus. He’s available when I’m in the mood … when it’s holiday time or at
certain moments in life. The rest of the time, He’s just out of sight, out of mind. This is “Part-time” Jesus.
Or, we might be attracted to “Storybook” Jesus. You can take stories from Scripture and enjoy them … treat
them like myths or legends … but you don’t have to take them seriously.
We all share this tendency to replace the real Jesus with the Jesus we want. And the teaching of Christmas is
that there was a real Jesus and that He grew up, and that coming to know the real Jesus is the most important
thing anyone can ever do.
I’d like to read some words from the Bible that are not often read at Christmas, but they are Christmas words
nonetheless. They were written by a friend of Jesus … His disciple, John:
That which was from the Beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked at (He’s talking now about Jesus … the real Jesus.) and our hands have touched, this
we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared.(Jesus was born.) We have seen it,
testified to it. We proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us, and
our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy
complete. (1John 1:1-4)
Here is what John has gone to some lengths to say:
What I write about to you … what you read about in the Scriptures … this is not like “Chicken Soup for
the Soul,” just about general uplifted spirits. These are not just pretty stories to make you feel good.
They’re not just wonderful spiritual parables. These things reallyhappened. They really did. I was
there. I saw, I touched. I heard. I want you to know the whole reason that I’m writing is so you can know
the real Jesus. Then you can decide if you want to follow this man or not.
It’s kind of interesting. I know some people who are really quite brilliant in many areas of their lives–in their
vocational lives, or in certain areas of their education–but when it comes to God, they have never given Him
more serious thought than Ricky Bobby did.
A friend of mine named Lee Strobel tells a story about a little boy who was in a Sunday School class and was
asked this question:
What is brown and has a long, furry tail and stores up nuts for the winter?
Because he’s in church, the kid says:
Well, I guess the answer is Jesus, but it sure sounds a lot like a squirrel to me.
Sometimes people go into a church, and they just don’t think very much.
A lot of people in our society (in fact, this may describe the average person in our society) would say something
like this:
Nobody can really know anything about God. That has to be kind of a faith deal. You can’t prove it one
way or another. I’m not a faith guy! I’m a facts guy. I’m into facts.
But there is a problem with this. Faith is a way of talking about beliefs that we cannot prove, but that we
commit ourselves to, that we base our lives on. We’re ALL faith guys. We all are.
Tim Keller writes about an imaginary conversation between two people. The first says:
I really do believe that Jesus is not just a made-up story. He’s a real person, and I wish you knew Him. I
wish you would make Him your Savior and your Lord. Would you let me tell you about Him? Would
you let me try to convince you about Him?
The second person says:
No way. No way. First, no one can know anything definite about God. Second, you shouldn’t try to
persuade other people to see things your way when it comes to spiritual matters. It’s not right.
When the second guy answers:
No one can ever know anything definite about God.
What’s that? That’s a statement of faith. It’s not scientific. It can’t be proven empirically. That’s his belief.
When he says to the first guy:
Nobody should try to convince people he’s right when it comes to God issues, and you should be
convinced that I’m right about this,
he’s doing the very thing that he says he forbids.
Both people have faith. Everybody has faith. Both people are betting their lives on something. The second guy
is betting his eternal destiny on the idea that nobody can know anything definite about God. That’s why people
like John wrote what he wrote.
The story of Christmas that we gather to celebrate and sing about on this day is not just a pretty story about a
cuddly, cute baby. It is not a sentimental metaphor that illustrates to us that we all ought to wish harder that
there would be peace on earth. It is a claim. It is a truth claim. It is a claim that in Jesus, something staggering
was happening … something that can happen for you. This is where is gets personal.
There is a new biography of Walt Disney, the one who imagined Mickey Mouse and designed and built
Disneyland. When she was a real little girl, his daughter didn’t know there was anything special about her dad.
To her, he was simply her daddy. Everybody else had a daddy. He was just her daddy. One day, when she was
about six or seven years old, somebody at school told her. She came home that day and looked him in the eye.
She was shocked:
Why didn’t you tell me? You’re Walt Disney!
She found out that this man who she loved and knew so well wasn’t just any man. He was Walt Disney. And
then she “rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”
It happened one day for a woman named Mary and a man named Joseph. It happened one day for a man named
Peter and a man named James and a man named John. It happened for each of them when they found out that
this baby, who really was born and grew up to be somebody they knew, somebody they loved, was no ordinary
man. He was the Son of God. He was the Savior. And John writes to say:
I knew Him. I walked with Him. I touched Him.
He writes at a time when there were still eyewitnesses alive who would have challenged it if it were not true.
This is what is amazing about Jesus, because it still happens. People still need Him.
I received a letter this last week from someone who was writing to describe his life … how messy it had been,
and how it had become tangled. There are times when each of our lives can become tangled by a series of
decisions that leave things looking pretty hopeless. Often, when letters like this one come in, it is because
someone is looking for advice, and it’s really hard to know what to say, because it becomes so complex. Except
this letter was not a request for advice.
After this description, the writer said:
Then one day, a couple of months ago, I came to church. I hadn’t been to church for a long, long time. It
was clear that God was speaking to me, and that’s the day I gave my life to God. And the person with
me, who was facing a lot of serious troubles, gave his life to God.

Dear Baby Jesus Ricky Bobby