The angel's announcement of the Savior's birth to the shepherds was a magnificent sight. The news included where they could find the Child and how they would recognize Him. "This will be a sign to you:" the angel proclaimed, "you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:12) The twofold "sign" is very interesting - "a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in an animal feed-box." How unimpressive. How commonplace. How ordinary. We would expect the signs to be much more impressive - more spectacular.
We are a society obsessed with the spectacular and the sensational. The more sensational, the better. Entertainment is judged not by its content, its literary merit, its significance, or its affect, but upon its special effects. Movie go-ers talk about the action, the sensational special effects, or the suspense when ask about movies they have seen. Tragic heart-wrenching occurrences are sensationalized when reported in the news. Videos of car collisions, plane crashes, boat explosions, and other such catastrophes are purchased and viewed by millions of people. We want the breathless adrenalin high that the spectacular gives us.
One danger of this insatiable hunger for the fantastic is our placing of this standard upon God. We do not want God to come as a baby. We certainly don't want the signs of His birth to be rags and a feed-box. We are excited with the angelic heavenly chorus and the special star in the sky. Yet, we are bothered by the fact that both were seen by so few. Why didn't God light up the sky with a spectacular light show to captivate everyone's attention? Why didn't Jesus rip open the heavens and descend with blazing glory? If God were a little more spectacular more people would take notice! At least, that's what we think.
One reason that many people missed the birth of the Messiah was because they were expecting Him to come in a different way. The were looking for royalty and splendor. The were not looking for God in the ordinary; the lowly; the commonplace. But, as Richard Foster points out, "The discovery of God lies in the daily and the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic." God in creation and in the incarnation intertwined the spiritual and the material; the sacred and the secular. He sanctifies the common and the ordinary for His use. How mysterious! How marvelous!
Our insistence that God would do His work with pizzazz and flair reveals our gross misunderstanding of His ways. God's ways are not our ways. There have been times He has done the sensational, but these are few by comparison and special in design and effect. God most often reveals Himself and accomplishes His work in the commonplace and ordinary. He uses the likes of you and me. He takes us and our meager gifts, feeble efforts, and inept endeavors to accomplish His divine will. Now, that is spectacular!
During this Christmas celebration, let us remember that God took common people, torn strips of cloth and a manger and transformed them into divine instruments for His gracious, holy work. As we give ourselves to Him, He does the same with us. He will probably not use us in spectacular, phenomenal ways. Rather, He will use us in the common, ordinary, everyday kind-of stuff and in a way that is beyond the sensational - a holy way which accomplishes His holy end and builds His Kingdom which has no end! How ordinary indeed!
Keep Close To Jesus
Pastor Gerry