Immanuel

Carrie McKean writes in an article on Christianity Today online:

When I think about the night of Jesus’ birth, the first picture that comes to mind is straight from my childhood. It’s like I’m peering into a snow globe manger scene. Snow falls softly, blanketing the hillside in a carpet of quiet. All is calm. All is bright. Give it a good shake, the snow gently swirls, then settles over the pristine couple and silent baby once again.

But that image is quickly crowded by another. 15 years ago, my husband and I lived in a dusty Chinese village on the outskirts of Beijing. We volunteered for four years at New Day Foster Home, a private, Christian nonprofit organization. In those days…they helped fund surgeries and provided long-term foster care for medically fragile orphans. We lived in an apartment complex about a mile from the organization’s campus, and most mornings we walked behind a flock of sheep and their shepherd on our way to work.

You could smell that shepherd’s stable before you saw it. Fetid and filthy, the sheep crowded in at the end of a day. In the summer, flies buzzed. In the winter, sludge froze solid. I would pass the sheep and their shepherd, pitying him a little. Around Christmas, I pictured my Savior born amid fresh, sweet hay in an inexplicably warm and comforting stable. The snow globe in my mind was just how I wanted to imagine Jesus’ entrance into the world. But the stable I walked past told the truth: Stables smell like dirty sheep.

I wanted to throw a snow globe against a brick wall. That clean Nativity was plastic, fraudulent, and fake. I felt angry at myself for all the ways I’d cheapened and tamed the gospel. My own faith felt fake and plastic too.

The world I saw outside my window needed a God-become-flesh in circumstances far messier than those perfect little snow globes. And here was this shepherd and his sheep, upending my picture of the Incarnation and revealing that the lack was in my seeing, not in Christ’s coming.

There’s no way around the fact that incarnation means coming to a filthy and fetid world, just like that stable in China…. It’s a world with disease and mental illness. A fallen creation groans with earthquakes, floods, and fires. Sorrow, unending sorrow. It is all too dirty, and yet he came near.

Jesus is God-made-flesh who doesn’t ask us to clean up the mess before he comes. He enters into our messes, always, always with us. He put on human skin…willingly emptying himself (Phil. 2:5-8), becoming a shepherd for you and me, a bunch of dirty sheep (John 10:11). He didn’t leave us in our squalor but led us to green pastures—to healing, rescue, and restoration of our souls (Ps. 23). I love a God who sees dirty sheep and tends them himself.

We used to have a short Halloween season, a nice slow-paced Thanksgiving, and then around mid-November we'd see Christmas stuff out for sale. Well, now these three events are getting mashed together in what one author calls a "HalloweenthanksgivingChristmaspalooza."

Ellyn von Huben notes, "I've noticed that so much of society's sense of holiday celebrations has been condensed that it is hard to even see what holiday we are headed toward."

Possible Preaching Angle:

This story (and her wonderful new word to describe this season) provides a great way to help your congregation slow down, take a deep breath, and focus on Christ and the true meaning of Advent, which Von Huben defines at "The time in which we prepare our hearts for the celebration of Our Lord made flesh to dwell among us."

Todd Brewer writes in an edition of Mockingbird:

Happy Holidays! Happy Advent! Happy Elf on the Shelf? Ha, there’s nothing happy about that Elf reporting every misdeed back to the big man at the north pole. This week, my daughter told me that her class’s elf on the shelf carries a Bluetooth Santa Cam, as if to make the Big Brother surveillance even more explicit. Perhaps it’s all fun and games … but the all-seeing Santa of the holidays can feel eerily similar to the Eye of Sauron.

Writing in Christianity Today, Russell Moore contrasts the watchful eye of the Elf-on-the-Shelf with that of God:

What stands out … is how strikingly more comprehensive the seeing of the God of the Bible is. Hagar … encounters God in the wilderness. “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’” (Gen. 16:13). This is a woman who is considered dispensable, no longer useful, and thus invisible to her community. But God sees her. She is not alone in the cosmos. His eye is on the sparrow, and his eye is on her.

Perhaps that’s why one of the most remarkable things about Jesus in his encounters with people … is his seeing them as they are, such as the private character of Nathanael: “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you” (John 1:48). After Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well, she tells her fellow villagers, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29).

This is not an Elf-on-the-Shelf religion; this is good news of great joy.

Each morning Alexander Chu awakened to the smell of incense burning offered in front of Buddha statues. His home was like a temple. On each wall hung a Buddha portrait, totaling more than 30 deities throughout the house.

You might think the family lived on a street in Thailand or China yet his home was in Lawrence, Kansas. His father was a science professor with a Guggenheim Award, and his mother was a so-called “tiger mom” who kept the pressure on Andrew and his two sisters for straight A’s.

My Taiwanese family lineage includes generations of Buddhists, so religion was destined to be integral to my identity formation. Yet outside our home, our neighbors pursued an entirely different faith. Somehow, I managed to go through 18 years of life without ever hearing the Good News of Jesus.

In the mid-1990s, Andrew arrived at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. His dorm was full of fervent Christians. These InterVarsity Christian Fellowship students were the first Asian American Christians he had ever met. Andrew said, “Living with them, I began to realize that the Buddhism of my upbringing was not in my heart.”

Growing curious about Christianity during his sophomore year, Andrew asked a friend if he could join him at an IVCF gathering. There for the first time he heard God’s promises declared in worship songs and saw men and women praising him. He joined GIG (Groups Investigating God) and began studying the Gospel of John. Andrew said, “The authority with which Jesus spoke amazed me; it’s as if his words jumped off the pages, addressing me directly.”

Before I could place faith in Jesus, I needed to know there was a rational basis for Christianity’s foundational truths. I attended a retreat sponsored by InterVarsity, where I took an apologetics track. I heard well-founded explanations of the inspiration of Scripture, the problem of evil, and the uniqueness of the gospel. I found that Christianity was the most intellectually stimulating worldview I had ever encountered.

During my junior year I started reading John Stott’s pamphlet “Becoming a Christian.” While reading, I grew convinced of my sin and need to be forgiven. I knelt down committed my life to Christ. I had grown up in a sea of deities, yet never had a relationship with any of them. On that day, I experienced the living God, Emmanuel: “God is with us.” A peace overtook me. That night I became the first Christian in our family’s lineage.

For months he prayed about how to tell his parents what had happened. When he was at home for winter break, he sat in the living room to read Following Jesus Without Dishonoring Your Parents. His father was stunned by his reading choice, but also pleased by the dutiful title of the book. When he asked why Andrew was reading it, he told him that he had become a Christian. His parents insisted that the family religion was Buddhism. Both parents held out hope that he would come to his senses and return to the Buddhist faith.

As the years passed, I started to discern a call to vocational ministry. My parents said that if I followed through with this plan, they would cut me off. Sensing disunity in our home, I decided to stay and care for my father, who was battling heart disease. My presence and devotion built mutual respect and helped preserve our relationship. In God’s timing, my family softened to my hopes of becoming a pastor. My parents continue to share their Buddhist experiences with me, and I continue to share my faith with them. My mom regularly prays to Jesus to bless and protect me.

Editor’s note: Andrew now serves on staff as pastor of outreach at a multisite church in the Chicago suburbs.

Who is Jesus? Few questions could be more relevant at Christmas. Yet a new Lifeway Research study shows nearly half of Americans believe a Christological heresy. Only 41 percent of Americans believe the “Son of God existed before Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” That means 59 percent either do not believe or are unsure whether they believe that the Son of God existed prior to the Nativity.

As pastors prepare their Christmas sermons this year, they might want to keep this fact in mind. Many who will walk through their doors on Sunday morning—some Christians, some not—hold to a heretical understanding of the Trinity. They’ll listen to the sermons and sing the songs, but their view of God is not orthodox. To be blunt, their view of God is not Christian.

(So), rather than a narrow focus on what Christ did, expand your vision to who Christ is. John’s Gospel is exemplary: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:1–3).

The Apostle is eager to introduce the saving work of Christ, but before he does so, he lifts us outside the confines of history to contemplate who this Son is from eternity: the Word who was not only with God but also was God.

But unless our Savior this Christmas is the “great God” himself, the One who descends into our darkness out of the glory of his everlasting light, we will never enjoy the blessedness and bliss of that (radiant) vision.

Debates about acceptable holiday greetings occasionally roil American retail stores and cable news shows. But when it comes to cards, most people prefer “Merry Christmas.” According to an industry survey, Americans send about 1.6 billion Christmas cards every year, and 53 percent carry the traditional religious greeting. “Happy Holidays” ranks second in card choice, and the more generic “Season’s Greetings” comes fourth after “other.”

The Christmas card tradition has proved surprisingly durable. It dates back to the Victorian era, when the celebration of Christmas was transformed into a family-centered commercial holiday. Queen Victoria started sending Christmas cards in the 1880s. Calvin Coolidge sent the first one from the White House about 40 years later.

The tradition sagged a little in the 21st century with the rise of social media; especially Facebook. But then Millennials revived the tradition as a way to add a personal connection to holiday celebrations. Card-sending households mail, on average, about 30 cards, and most people prefer pictures of kids and an old-fashioned “Merry Christmas.”

Preferred Christmas Card Greetings:

Merry Christmas 53%

Happy Holidays 21%

Season’s Greetings 12%

Other Messages 14%

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even amid today’s growing secularism, people are drawn to the joy and hope that the traditional “Merry Christmas” greeting brings. It is a constant witness to the birth of the hope of the world.

When the President of the United States travels by car, the Presidential motorcade is both the safest and the riskiest convoy on the planet. This globe-trotting fleet of vehicles is basically a rolling, armored White House, complete with its own response force, communications office, press corps and medical facilities. All these vehicles are moved via USAF heavy-transports, such as C-17s, and those flights come at a steep cost.

The Presidential Motorcade consists of a wide variety of vehicles. Generally, the Presidential Motorcade is made up of the following components:

• Route Car & Pilot Car – Which travel ahead of the motorcade checking the route and providing guidance.
• Sweepers – Consisting of motorcycles and patrol cars clearing the way.
• Presidential Limousine – This very heavy Cadillac is really an extremely survivable armored car. "The Beast" is outfitted with top-level ballistic armoring, night vision/infrared driving systems, a sealed cabin with an independent air supply capable of enduring a nuclear-biological-chemical attack, and even a supply of the President’s blood type. All of this is in addition to a state-of-the-art communications system.
• Identical Limousine – At least one identical car always accompanies it, and sometimes many more. These cars are used as a backup as well a serving as decoys.
• Additional Vehicles – Following the motorcade is the security detail SUV filled with heavily armed agents. There is an Electronic Countermeasures Vehicle so that if a threat is detected, smoke, chaff, and targeted jamming could disrupt an attack. Then there is the Press van, an ambulance in case there is an accident or attack and helicopters overhead to provide over-watch.

All the technology that goes into protecting the President is amazing and so is the price tag. It is estimated that the White House spends $350 million a year on the President’s transport. Just one trip costs $2,614 each and every minute to transport the leader of the free world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

On Christmas Day when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords came to earth there was no heavily armed security detail, high tech defensive systems, medical personnel, or press corps. Instead, his arrival was witnessed only by Mary and Joseph and a few humble shepherds. However, it was the costliest trip in history, since though he was rich, he became poor (2 Cor 8:9), he emptied himself and took the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6), and he left the glory and worship of heaven to be born in a stable (Luke 2:7).

The lights had been strung, the guest list was set and the Santa hats were ready to go for the first Christmas party Umniah Alzahery and Mike Bounacklie would openly throw in Saudi Arabia. This in a country famous for its ultraconservative form of Islam. The only problem was the tree, which they had to procure in whispers from a gift store proprietor who quietly produced one from a darkened room.

Saudis and their government have long played peekaboo over certain behaviors that were officially banned, but privately widespread. These days, however, Christmas is bursting out of the shadows.

Over the last year or so, shop windows in Riyadh have begun to display wink-wink-nod-nod gift boxes in red and green and advent calendars, while cafes dispense gingerbread cookies and florists advertise “holiday trees.”

It is all possible because of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has won over millions of young Saudis by relaxing some of the stricter religious rules. He is showcasing what he hopes will be seen as a newly tolerant, moderate Saudi Arabia to attract foreign investment and tourists.

On a recent evening, Maha Aljishi and her 13-year-old daughter were wandering through Riyadh Boulevard, an enormous new shopping, dining, and entertainment complex when they stumbled on a giant gingerbread house and a herd of twinkling reindeer.

They were the kind of decorations Ms. Aljishi and her relatives once feared getting caught putting up at home. “Am I in Saudi Arabia?” Ms. Aljishi wondered aloud. “Is this a dream? Just a few years ago, this was all haram” (an Arabic word meaning forbidden by Islamic law).

Revan Moha, 19, has never left Saudi Arabia, but nonetheless was desperate to find a Christmas tree in Riyadh this December. “Oh,” she said recently, “I wish it would snow!” She was delighted to learn that trees were readily available in party supply stores--artificial ones, of course.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Although Christmas may be celebrated in Saudi Arabia for mixed reasons, it is an opportunity for them to hear “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). As Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come” (Matt 24:14).

Who is the most-powerful being in the Marvel Multiverse? It’s not Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor, or Thanos, but someone called “the One Above All.” Here’s how he makes his appearances in the universe:

Appearances of the One Above All are few and far between. The deity sometimes appears as a blinding white light, or a nondescript homeless man. However, one of the most notable sightings of the being was seen in Fantastic Four #511. Traveling through a realm that could only be described as heaven, the four pass through a door and emerge in an ordinary living room. Before them sits the One Above All, sketching comic panels and characters on a drawing board--and he bears a striking resemblance to the legendary artist Jack Kirby.

As the co-creator of the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor, Black Panther, the X-Men, and countless other characters over the decades, Jack Kirby is an ideal representation of the God of the Marvel Universe. Even so, he takes a phone call from a "collaborator" in a later panel (heavily hinted to be Stan Lee), much to the amazement of the Fantastic Four.

Marvel's depiction of the One Above All as a simple human artist works perfectly within their universe. As the OAA-as-Jack Kirby himself says "That's what my creations do. They find the humanity in God.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Often when humans imagine God, they imagine him to be a really big version of themselves. What if God, our creator, stepped inside his creation, in a way we could understand and find relatable? And amazingly, he did!

Christmas is a celebration of a real event, according to most Americans. Just don’t expect them to know exactly why Jesus was born and came to earth. A new study from Lifeway Research finds close to three in four Americans believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Even more say Jesus is the Son of God the Father, but less than half believe Jesus existed prior to being born on that first Christmas.

According to a Lifeway Research study:

• More than 9 in 10 Americans (91%) celebrate Christmas.
• For most of those celebrating, Christmas is about a historical occurrence.
• More than 7 in 10 (72%) say the Jesus Christians believe in was born in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. Few (9%) disagree, while 18 percent aren’t sure.

• Most Americans (80%) agree Jesus Christ is the Son of God the Father, while 10 percent disagree and 10 percent aren’t sure.
• The average person isn’t quite as sure about the Son of God’s existence prior to Jesus’ birth. Around 41% say God’s Son existed before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. 32% of Americans disagree, and 28 percent say they’re not sure.

The religiously unaffiliated are least likely to agree with any of the statements surrounding Jesus’ birth and identity:

• Almost half (48%) believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God the Father. A third (33%) say Jesus was really born in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. Fewer (15%) believe the Son of God existed before Jesus was born.

• Among Christians, those who attend church four times a month or more, are most likely to believe each of the statements about Jesus and his birth: 98 percent believe Jesus is the Son of God the Father, 95 percent say he was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, and 63 percent agree the Son of God existed before Jesus was born.

In an issue of CT magazine singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken writes:

I visited the National Portrait Gallery recently in Washington, DC. In its elegant hallways, a wide range of well-lit paintings are displayed side by side: politicians, war heroes, athletes, musicians, presidents. It is a library of human faces—a silent, visual documentary of who we are.

In particular, I was moved by Robert McCurdy’s portrait of the late author Toni Morrison. The oil-on-canvas looks like a photograph. She reveals no discernible expression but radiates light from within. There is integrity, sorrow, and tenacity in her face. McCurdy aims for the viewer to be able to have their own personal encounter with the subject. It is a powerful experience to be face-to-face with someone you’ve never met in a piece like this one.

God has designed us for face-to-face encounters. Which is perhaps why God orchestrated the ultimate face-to-face experience in the Incarnation. God himself took on flesh, born as a baby that we would see the face of God in Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:8 acknowledges the mystery that, even though we have an unfulfilled longing to see the incarnate Jesus, we love him anyway: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”

While we can’t see Jesus today in physical form, we can know him as he is revealed in the scriptures. If I were to paint a McCurdy-style portrait of Jesus, I would use the photographic poetry of Isaiah 53. “Surely he took up our pain, and bore our suffering” (Isa. 53:4). Here we see Jesus in the eternal present and here I can imagine what Jesus looks like. Not only do his hands have scars from nail holes, but his face is etched with love and sorrow and beauty that we will one day see in glorified form, in his resurrected body.

Jeff Peabody writes in a Christmas issue of CT magazine:

Several years ago, I decided to write a daily Christmas blog post on our church blog. So, I decided to tackle the theology of Christmas wrapping. I vaguely recalled that some cultures use cloth instead of paper to wrap gifts, which sounded intriguing.

That’s when I first learned about the ancient Japanese art of furoshiki. Feudal lords needed a practical way to bundle their belongings while using the bathhouse, and they displayed their family crests on the outer cloth to identify whose was whose.

Over the centuries, people adapted furoshiki into a beautiful means of presenting gifts. I realized that Jesus came to us in furoshiki, wrapped in cloths. The practice of swaddling crosses cultural lines and can be traced to the earliest civilizations.

For centuries, parents believed that wrapping infants tightly in place helped their limbs to grow straighter. Swaddling fell out of fashion in the 18th century, when physicians largely believed the tightness of the binding was not healthy. Babies need to be able to move somewhat freely for natural development.

It was new for me to consider this less pleasant side of swaddling. I can imagine Jesus in that manger, arms and legs straining against the unyielding bonds. What must it be like for a baby—particularly this baby, God incarnate—to be unable to move in any direction? What must it have been like to have your world shrunk and narrowed so severely?

The conditions of his advent were a small metaphor for his entire life. As the Son of God became flesh and bones, he experienced an unfathomable limitation of himself. The universe closed in around him, restricting him with time and space (see Phil. 2:6–8). Having a human body was like being swaddled, as it contained Almighty God in unnaturally small dimensions.

Possible Preaching Angle:

At some point, each of us meets the limits of being human. We all suffer the inescapable reality of sin and its fallout in this broken world. The simple image of Jesus, God’s gift to us, being wrapped up in cloths comforts me with the powerful truth: He understands the bindings on my mind and soul as only someone who has a shared experience can. The concept of Immanuel, God with us, takes on a new and profound clarity.

T.F. Torrance was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, but prior to that, he served as a chaplain during World War II. One day, on a battlefield in Italy, he attended to a dying nineteen-year-old soldier. The dying man asked him, “Padre, is God really like Jesus?”

For Torrance, this question captured “the deepest cry of the human heart”--is the God that we’ll meet on the other side of the death the same God that came to earth as a lowly babe?

Torrance assured the dying man with these words: “God is indeed really like Jesus. There is no unknown God behind the back of Jesus for us to fear. To see the Lord Jesus is to see the very face of God.” This experience would guide all of his future work as a minister and theologian.

Possible Preaching Angle:

(1) Torrance’s story brings comfort: God may be fierce, he may be all powerful, he may be the Judge of all the earth--but he’s also the same God revealed in the gentle face of Jesus. If the Gospels are true, we’ve got nothing to fear when we meet God. (2) Theology gets a bad rap for being impractical. But for T.F. Torrance, theology was real for people with real problems, not just academics in an Ivory Tower. Knowing what it means that Jesus reveals the Father and is one with him is one of the most important truths any of us can ever know. So important, it’ll change your life!

When Rebecca Pippert was an agnostic, she had one question she continually wrestled with: How can finite limited human beings ever claim to know God? How do they know they are not being deceived?

Pippert writes:

One sunny day I was stretched out on the lawn … when I noticed that some ants were busy building a mound. I began to redirect their steps with twigs and leaves. But they simply bounced off and started a new ant mound. I thought, This is like being God! I am redirecting their steps, and they don’t even realize it!

At one point, two ants crawled onto my hands and I thought, Wouldn’t it be funny if one ant turned to the others and said, “Do you believe in Becky? Do you believe Becky really exists?” I imagine the other ant answering, “Don’t be ridiculous! Becky is a myth, a fairy tale!” How comical, I thought--the hubris of that ant declaring that I don’t exist, when I could easily blow it off my hand. But what if the other ant said, “Oh, I believe that Becky exists!” How would they resolve it? How could they know that I am real? I thought. What would I have to do to reveal to them who I am?

Suddenly I realized: the only way to reveal who I am, in a way that they could understand, would be to become an ant myself. I would have to identify totally with their sphere of reality. I sat upright, and I remember thinking, What and amazing thought! The scaling-down of the size of me to perfectly represent who I am in the form of an ant! I know; I would have to do tricks! Things that no other ant could do!

Then it hit me: I had just solved my problem of how finite creatures could ever discover God. God would have to come from the outside and reveal who he is.

Hart Island is found a little way off the coast of Long Island. Nobody lives on Hart Island. It is the home, though, of a million bodies—bodies that have been buried there. It’s a place that’s known as a potter’s field. It’s a place meant for the homeless, the stillborn, poor immigrants, poets, and artists who died penniless. It’s a wasteland for the forgotten dead.

But its newest additions are those who have died from the coronavirus. (During the Covid-19 crisis they dug) … a mass grave on Hart Island. All of these bodies are placed in cheap, crate-like coffins, set side-by-side, as backhoes and men in hazmat suits cover them over with dirt. People dying without dignity, dying with disease, being buried, and being buried safely so as to contain the disease that still resides in their decaying skin.

On Hart Island, in the very middle of the island, there is a large, white cross, with black letters inscribed on the horizontal beam. Those letters read out this way: HE KNOWS US ALL BY NAME. The Risen Christ never forgets a name. He remembers. The stainless white cross that stands in the middle of Hart Island stands as the definitive public witness: He knows us all by name.

Since 1939, Stan Lee created or co-created some of the world’s most popular superheroes. His super-human imagination gave birth to Black Panther, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, and Ant-Man, just to name a few.

Of course, the world has no shortage of storytellers, but Lee was something of a mutant in the field. The Avengers series alone has generated more than $10 billion in ticket sales at the box office since 2008. So, what set his stories apart from the rest? Lee was able to tap into deeply rooted human instincts.

He explains his secret in a 1984 interview with ET:

The whole formula … was to say: Let’s assume that somebody really could walk on walls like Spider-Man, or turn green and become a monster like The Hulk. That’s a given; we’ll accept that. But, accepting that, what would that person be like in the real world if he really existed? Wouldn’t he still have to worry about making a living? Or having acne and dandruff? Or his girlfriend jilting him? What are the real problems people would have? I think that’s what made the books popular.

We all know we need a superhero to rescue us from our enemies and from calamities. But we simultaneously want this hero to be someone with whom we can identify. There are two instincts woven into our fallen nature: the knowledge that we need someone to save us and the deep desire for another to understand our struggles. Lee was also well-known for his cameo appearances inside the stories he had written. Each film since X-Men in 2000 (until his death in 2018) has featured a brief incarnation of the author.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Stan Lee wasn’t the first to write himself into his storyline. Jesus did not simply rescue us from afar. He wrote himself into our story. He became a man and subjected himself to all the tyrannies of a fallen world.

There was no question he loved her. He was absolutely bedazzled by her. Surprising, really, because she was plain, maybe even… well, (to someone else perhaps) disappointing. But then, he himself was a poor man who didn’t have even two coins to rub together. He wasn’t especially handsome, either. But he was good… a good and godly man, and he swept her off her feet, and won her heart. What makes that ordinary story extraordinary is the rest of the story.

The story—told by Soren Kierkegaard —actually begins, “Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden.” He was a great king and he could have whatever he wanted. Every statesman feared his wrath, every foreign state trembled before his power; they would have all sent ambassadors to the wedding.

He realized that if he asked his courtiers they would say, “Your majesty is about to confer a favor upon the maiden for which she can never be sufficiently grateful her whole life long.” That was the problem! Even if she wanted to come with him, he would never know for certain if she would have loved him for himself. So he wrestled with his troubled thoughts alone.

Finally, he decided. If she could not come up to his high station and be sure to love him freely, he must descend to hers. And he must descend stripped of his royal power and wealth, for only then would he know if his beloved loved him freely, as equals. So he laid aside all his power and privileges, and came to her as her equal, to win her love.