Who Would Imagine a King

Happy Advent! As the Advent season is about drawing near to our sweet Savior, savoring the moments of anticipation as we wait on this unexpected, unimaginable gift, I have decided to intentionally give time each day to drawing near. This season I want to draw near through my two favorite mediums, music and writing. So each day I'm planning to pick the lyrics from one of my favorite, some common, some lesser-known, Christmas songs and write about Jesus through that lens. If you want to peek into my humble journey through the Greatest Story, I'd love your company. I hope you discover a few songs you never knew you needed to love, and also, perhaps, God and Holy Spirit willing, see new glimpses of our Savior. That's my prayer for myself--I want to experience Jesus and this precious time of year through fresh eyes. I know God will honor that desire; He's all about drawing near!

When I first thought of this project, I thought I would start with "O Come All Ye Faithful" or "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus", but today I found myself in search of a song that captured the shock, the awe, the unimaginable way that Jesus arrived. Izzy and I started the day with Ann Voskamp's Advent book, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift. Lingering in Voskamp's beautiful language (thank goodness God gave me a daughter who loves words!) I found this beautiful image:

Their family tree was a fallen tree.
When their family tree crashed to the ground, it crushed all of their hearts.
The stump--and all of their days--felt utterly hopeless. Like their hearts had been cut right out of them.
But it happened: the wondrous impossible. It came right out of that chopped down stump--the miracle no one ever dreamed of. Except for God. God never stopped dreaming of the miracle, the one He'd dreamed right from the very beginning, because love never stops dreaming of a way to draw close again.

I just love that idea--love constantly dreaming up a way to draw close again. Isn't that the truth? Think about how often our broken hearts have longed for mending, how we imagine reuniting with long lost loved ones. In fact, every romantic comedy I can think of consists of a conflict that draws lovers apart and leaves viewers longing, in fact dreaming, of how to get those two love birds together again. These pieces of our heart are merely glimpses of God's heart; we were made in His image and as image bearers, albeit broken, we are looking for ways to draw close again.

We are indeed broken, and God knew we would be, and He had already orchestrated a grand plan to win us back, long before we ever fell away! He "dreamed right from the very beginning" a way to reconnect the relationship we had torn asunder.

He talked of this plan in Genesis 3, right at the very beginning, immediately after the Fall. He then spent the whole of the Old Testament, making covenant after covenant, sending prophet after prophet, using story after story, to hint at His great rescue.

The wisest, most faithful men, read these stories, interpreted these prophecies, held tightly to these covenants, and yet they had no idea what God had in store for them. They imagined a triumphant military leader, a stately King, a powerful Messiah. But no one, not a one, saw a baby born in a stable.

And perhaps this is why I have always loved this song. The Preacher's Wife is one of my favorite Christmas movies, and this song pierced me to the heart when I first saw the movie. I'm certain my 6th grade self didn't truly understand the power of this question: "Who would imagine a King?" I didn't know the history, I didn't know that the Pharisees were imagining a King of quite a different sort. What I did think of often was Mary, her innocent, school-girl dreams of what her family might be like. As she played house with her siblings and cousins, I imagined her assigning her children names, giving them qualities, envisioning who they would be when they grew up. Surely a fisherman or a carpenter or a teacher, these everyday professions that would be taken from the world she knew. Perhaps, if she were like Izzy, she might dream of a daughter who became a princess, like Esther. But would she ever imagine assigning her fictional child the role of King?

Yet here was the angel, and he was announcing just that--an infant King. Mary's ponderings in this song are so beautiful, so innocent:

Mommies and daddies always believe
That their little angels are special indeed
And you could grow up to be anything
But who would imagine a king?
A shepherd or teacher is what you could be
Or maybe a fisherman out on the sea
Or maybe a carpenter building things
But who would imagine a king?
It was so clear when the wise men arrived
And the angels were singing Your name
That the world would be different 'cause You were alive
That's why heaven stood still to proclaim
One day an angel said quietly
That soon he would bring something special to me
And of all of the wonderful gifts he could bring
Who would imagine?
Who could imagine?
Who would imagine a king?

Mary treasured up all of these things in her heart; all the what ifs, all the playing pretends, and also the angels proclaiming the birth of her Son, the Glory to Gods, the Shepherds kneeling at a trough, and the Magi bearing priceless gifts. "Who could imagine that I would give birth to a King?"

The answer, Mary, is the God you hold in your arms. He dreamed this up with the Father from the very beginning. This was His plan. This was His grand gesture of love. You and I could not have imagined it. It seemed impossible that love would come in the form of a baby. It seemed incredible that this baby would grow to be a man who loved fiercely, spoke truthfully, and moved in great power. It seemed unthinkable that He would then willingly walk the hill to be crucified on a cross. And it seemed unimaginable that He would rise again the King over death.

He worked beyond all we could imagine so that He could draw close to us in love. Praise be to God for doing exceedingly and abundantly more than all we ask or imagine!