“Searching for the Noble One”
My wife and I were reading Luke, chapter 2 on Christmas Day. Luke 2 talks about the shepherds being told to look for this very special child—in fact, this King—in a stable. I prefer the word “barn”. I grew up on a farm. I know what a barn is. A stable is entirely too biblical to suit me.
A king in a barn—a very strange juxtaposition of images. My wife made a wonderful pun that makes me laugh again every time I think of it. “The shepherds had to look through a lot of barns in order to find the Noble.” Her word play on Barnes and Noble Book Stores was an immediate hit with this lover of books.
But, as is often the case, humor caused me to think more deeply about serious things. When the laughter subsides, Truth often remains. Really good humor bears wonderfully nutritious fruit.
The story of God’s invasion of the planet begins to unfold in a barn. The strange appropriateness of this never fails to speak to me and to bring me to an awed silence.
A barn?!? Is that really the best we could do to welcome this King, whom some of us believe was God in the flesh? Yep!
And yet, such a strange God who begins his earthly pilgrimage in a barn as a baby is worth searching for. If for no other reason, we ought to love this story because it tells us of a God who is weirdly approachable. You don’t get dressed up to go to a barn. You come as you are.
I’ve searched for the Noble in a lot of barns since I left the farm. I’ve looked in books, education, ideas, possessions, people, and addictions. Meanwhile, the Noble One was waiting to be born in a barn which I call “me”.
Many of us know only the first verse of Christmas hymns. Sometimes, the best stanzas are the ones we don’t know. Here is a lesser-known part of the hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. It is a prayer and it’s a good one.
“O holy Child of Bethlehem,
descend to us, we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in;
be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels,
the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
our Lord Emmanuel!”
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