The ordinary King

  Bill and Gloria Gaither wrote a song back in the early 80's titled "Ordinary Baby." The idea of the song is that Jesus came as just an ordinary baby, yet He was far from ordinary. I was listening to the song yesterday and the first verse really stuck out to me:

He was just an ordinary baby, 
That’s the way He planned it, maybe
Anything but common would have kept Him apart
From the children that He came to rescue, 
Limited to some elite few;
When He was the only Child who asked to be born. 

  It is beyond our finite minds to comprehend why God would send His Son to this earth for us in the first place. To do so in such a way as He did is even further beyond the scope of our understanding. To have the King of everything lying in a manger is not at all how we would have written the story. We would have had Him lying in the best baby bed money could buy, and being born in a palace; not in a stable surrounded by filth and smelly animals.

  But had He been born in the way that a true King should be born, what then of the shepherds and other common people? There is no way they would have been allowed in a palace to see a newborn King, or any King. But since He was born in a stable, they just walked in with no palace guards to stop them. These shepherds had been in the field with sheep and had to have been rather smelly, yet no one told them they had to clean up and wear fancy clothes before they could see this newborn King. And these common shepherds, the first people to hear the announcement of Jesus birth and among the first to see Him, left to never be the same again.

  Not much has changed in two thousand years. This same Jesus who had dirty, smelly shepherds come before Him welcomes anyone to come to Him today. We too can come to this same King with all of our sin, our dirt and filth; and He will not turn us away. Most of us could never get in to see the rulers of any country, unless we had connections. If we somehow managed to gain an audience with one of these rulers, we would look our best and make sure we showered and smelled our best. If we showed up smelly and dirty, we would be turned away or at least told to make ourselves more presentable.

  But Jesus came in a lowly way and in a lowly place so He would not be kept apart from the ones He came to save. He will never turn us away, and if we encounter Him; we will never be the same again.