Titanium Baby

In an earlier post, I wrote about how I was focused on the fragility of a newborn baby and how this demonstrates the humility of God.

I've been thinking about this idea, though, and I wonder how fragile Jesus really was. A cursory web search brought up the statistics that during Roman times that 5-10 percent of all births ended in the death of the mother, and infant mortality rate was about 20%. I don't know if things were significantly different for practicing Jews, but I doubt that it was much different. Obviously, both Jesus and Mary survived his birth, despite this statistic and despite what may have been extremely unsanitary and otherwise unfavorable conditions.

Later, God derailed Herod's plan to kill Jesus by warning Joseph in a dream, so that the family could escape. During his ministry, Jesus avoided stoning and other physical harm several times, seeming to be able to slip through angry mobs at will (see John 10:39, Luke 4:29-30). In addition, there is a scripture (Psalms 91:11-12) that says that angels will protect the Messiah against him striking his foot on a stone; this Scripture is quoted to Jesus by Satan during the temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:5-6).

All this to ask: could Jesus be hurt before his trial? Does it make sense that God would allow the possibility of harm coming to him? And even if he could technically be hurt (say, by soldiers killing all of the children in a town) and yet avoided that fate through supernatural means, wasn't it the same, practically, as if he couldn't be hurt? Instead of fragile and weak Jesus, was he, instead, invincible?

Was Jesus the Titanium Baby? I think that it is an interesting philosophical question. However, even if Jesus was incapable of being harmed, I still think that his birth as a human baby continues to show the humility of God.