Throughout the odd half century of my life, I have passed by cribs in various parts of the world without sparing a second thought for the voicelessness of the Infant Jesus. And while I have frequently kissed clay effigies of the dormant newborn as they reposed upon straw beds designed to simulate a manger in Bethlehem, I’d never really considered the power concealed in His lack of a voice. Yet, long before He became Jesus Christ Superstar, two thousand and ten years ago, or could utter a single word, the little swaddled babe had already begun to jolt visitors into sitting up and taking notice. Ironically, I became aware of the great efficacy of His absence of a voice only when I lost mine.

Three months ago, I was diagnosed with a thyroid ailment that necessitated its removal. Doctors told me to expect a sore throat for a few days after which, with a little bit of rest, they suggested I return to work. I scheduled the operation on a Friday in the hope of recuperating over the weekend and resuming duties on Tuesday. But in the tradition of the best-laid plans of mice and men…

I awoke in the hospital on Saturday morning and struggled to push myself through a shroud of listlessness induced by general anesthesia. Needing help to get out of bed to use the bathroom, I tried to call for a nurse…only to discover, to my horror, that my voice had disappeared. What emerged from my parched throat was no more than a hoarse whisper.

“Fear not,” said the young intern who came around to see me, an hour later. “The procedure went superbly. It was truly a textbook operation.”

“But my voice…” I tailed off in a whisper.

“Perfectly normal,” he replied. “It’ll be back by tomorrow morning at the latest.” I beamed as my spirits soared. But he could not have been more wrong.

I was discharged later that morning and spent the next 48 hours at home in bed, as lifeless as a punctured helium balloon. When the effects of the anesthesia ultimately wore off, I could sit up in bed; but despite my best efforts to coax words out of my throat, I couldn’t manage anything more than breathy gasps. Marlene Dietrich and Demi Moore might have thought I was aping them! When Monday came along and my voice was nowhere in evidence, I recoiled from the worst-case scenario of a life devoid of my livelihood.

For, as irony would have it, my work involves volubility—indeed, my voice is my very bread and butter. As a professor, I am deeply handicapped without it. How on earth was I supposed to return to my classroom in the middle of a semester and continue with the courses I’d begun to teach when the academic year had begun in September? And as if my voice loss was not devastating enough, my nights filled with gasping sounds so petrifying they kept my poor husband awake right through the night. No, there was no way I could return to work, as planned, four days after a thyroidectomy.

When my voice did not return for a full three weeks, paralyzed vocal cords were suspected—the result of neuropraxia—a rare condition in which nerves are so shocked and stretched by surgery that they become weak and ineffectual. In other words, my vocal cords had ceased to function. This paralysis had an impact, I discovered, not just on my ability to speak, but to breathe and swallow. It didn’t take me long to realize that when your vocal cords stop working, you can neither yawn nor sneeze nor cough. You cannot laugh and you cannot cry. And you certainly cannot sing. But–cruel irony, this–you sure can snore! I was sent to an ENT specialist who confirmed the fact that the return of my voice would take three to six months although nobody could predict just how much of it would come back.

Long story short, I have spent the last six weeks of my life oscillating between bouts of near-depression and flights of delirious optimism. A week after surgery, with my energy showing slight signs of renewal, I returned to my students and explained, in regretful whispers, that my recovery was taking far longer than expected and had left me robbed of a voice.  They literally sat up higher in their seats and not just took notice—they hung on to my every syllable. That’s when it occurred to me that I was receiving swifter and more riveting attention from my class as I whispered than I’d ever done when I spoke at my normal volume!

So here’s where the baby Jesus comes in. There is something about muteness that solicits immediate response. Maybe, in His divine wisdom, His Father sent Jesus down as a helpless infant in a crèche because he knew how effective such a guise could prove. Babies—whether silent or gurgling delightedly—have captured the imagination of artisans through the ages. In Hindusim, the rotund baby Krishna and the pot-bellied baby Ganesha come to mind. Christianity has made an iconic figure of the infant child whose tongue remains wordless even while his eyes speak volumes. Through the centuries, painters and sculptors have been so fascinated by this representation of the Christ Child that versions of The Nativity and The Adoration of the Magi are legion. From the earliest medieval depictions of the Madonna and Child to up-to-the-minute pop art versions of the Holy Family, we see Jesus in the company of his parents, depicted soundlessly but fixated in his confident gaze upon the seeable future. It is precisely because His impact is so staggering that we queue to genuflect at nativity scenes whenever we see them at Yuletide. Indeed there is something compelling about a baby who says nothing yet speaks directly to our hearts.

I continue to live in the hope that my normal voice will return before too long. For the moment, I am content with hoarseness which makes me sound like I’ve a bad case of laryngitis.  Modern technology has equipped me with a tiny clip-on microphone that permits me to continue teaching much to the awe of my students who think of my solution as “so cool!” Despite my faith and trust that the Lord will not remain deaf to my pleas, I must admit that I flounder between profound hope and deep despair.  But whenever I find myself gripped by doubt, I call to mind the image of the speechless infant Jesus and console myself with the thought that so quiet a child had so powerful a reach. Incredible, that two millennia after his humble birth, we continue to bow in adoration before His silent image.