The Modest Birth of Jesus

As God, Jesus was the only baby who chose his parents. He chose a teenage girl from a backwater town so small it’s not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. Her fiancée was a carpenter so poor he could not provide more than the most basic sacrifice when Jesus was born.

When the time came for him to be born, his mother brought him to Bethlehem, where they arrived so late there was room only in a stable, which was probably a dark, dingy cave. And so, the Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, was born in a cave and laid in a feed trough. His mother was a virgin, but society didn’t believe that and gossiped about her and him all his life. 

He then grew up in obscurity in Nazareth before beginning his movement in Galilee, far from the power structures, i.e., the temple, the Rabbis, and the Sanhedrin. His disciples, while some were successful businessmen, were not recognized as scholars or religious authorities.

Certainly, Jesus came to fulfill a particular mission: to die for the sins of the world (John 3:16). 

But the God who created the universe and entered it as a man could have come in any way he wanted: rich, as an old man, a Roman, a woman, etc. He chose to come into the world as a baby and lived a life of relative poverty.

It shows Jesus' solidarity with us. He sweated, stubbed his toe, had to learn how to hammer a nail, got extremely dirty, and was breastfed as an infant. 

Take a moment to reflect on the incredible fact that God came in the form of a human, for you. See Jesus’ dirty, windswept face, hardened by the desert heat, full of humanness, yet also full of love. What God loves us enough to experience earth?

Take a moment to thank Jesus for coming, not just to die, but to live here so that he could sympathize with us (Hebrews 4:15). 

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9) He came to earth so that we might become rich by God’s wealth of grace. 

Do you value money, status, and power? 

Would the fact that Jesus (the King of Kings) was born to a poor, unimportant family offend you? 

Ask God to give you a humble heart and see what is important in his kingdom.