The Holy Sound – Stanza #3
You would think that God’s mighty King of Kings would be born in a palace. However, God’s plans are different than ours. He was born in a lowly stable before a humble audience of farm animals. No doctor, midwife, or even relatives attended the birth, just the parents that God chose for Him. He never sat on a throne, and the only crown He wore was made of thorns. We, as humans, expect kings to make a grand entrance with heralding trumpets and massive fanfare. We equate it with power, but heaven’s strength lies in humble places. Although we are made in His image, God’s ideas of greatness are quite the opposite of ours. Jesus entering as a baby and living as a servant perfectly demonstrates God’s values. Love, humility, servanthood, and approachability.
But the greatest among you will be your servant.
Matthew 23:11
Breaking the Silence
At the time of Jesus’ birth, God’s people were not expecting the Messiah to arrive as a helpless baby. God’s people had lived under political oppression for hundreds of years. When John the Baptist burst on the scene, God had been silent for over three hundred years. At John’s announcement of the Messiah, people once again looked for their idea of God’s salvation, but in the form of a savior that would set them free politically. They imagined a mighty king in shining armor riding in on his proverbial white horse to save them politically. They were desperately oppressed, but God wisely addressed our more crucial and consequential needs. We sometimes try to put God in our box.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:9
Who He Is vs. Who We Expect
There’s such beauty in this plan. An all-powerful God stepped from heaven to earth to serve and not be served. Jesus contained Himself within the limitations of a human mind and body but still lived a perfect life. This made Him eligible to be the perfect sacrifice for sins. It began with tiny hands sweetly reaching out from a manger and ended with outstretched arms on the cross. He’s still reaching out to us, but we can easily miss Him by expecting something else. Let’s take a moment each day to reach to Him for who He is, not what we expect Him to be. He comes to us in unconventionally humble ways lets seek who He is and not what we want or expect Him to be, and we won’t be disappointed.
“…who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Philippians 2:6-8
“Born not in a palace or even a home;
Emerging in secret, far from a throne.
Giving no glory to stature or wealth,
Heaven came down to conquer hell.”
The holy sound, stanza 3
