Making Room in AdventSample

Making Room for the Marginalized

In this time in history, royal birth announcements were accompanied by a choir that would worship the king of an earthly empire. It was done in the sight of the highest class and was very public. In contrast, the arrival of King Jesus’ birth was not announced within the palace courts to the privileged, but incognito in an ordinary field to lowly shepherds.

Shepherds at that time were on the margins of society. It was a profession without honor and considered unclean. They likely felt isolated, rejected, and cut off from the things of God and the people of God.

But God comes down to the shepherds— the ones on the outside looking in. The glory of heaven comes to find them on the outskirts of society in their workplace.

Here we find the lowly shepherds as the recipients of this great announcement about the Messiah’s birth. God is making a statement. He is born into the margins and announced to the marginalized. Though he is the King of all kings, there is nowhere so foul he is too proud to go and no person so lowly he is too lofty to embrace.

What better sign of good news for all people than how Jesus came? As an infant born among animals, God became completely accessible to the lowliest of all people. The shepherds would not need to clean themselves up or journey to the temple to see him. He removed the religious, cultural, and political barriers so they could behold God in the flesh.

The contrast is striking.
A king arrives in a stable.
The holy is birthed into dirt.
Heavenly fanfare fills an earthy field.
Brilliant glory illuminates the dark night.
Lofty angels sing before lowly shepherds.
All point to the good news that would be for all people.

The shepherds show us that we don’t prepare to receive the King of heaven the same way we prepare to meet the celebrities of our day, through earthly displays of showiness. In fact, receiving our King requires we do just the opposite: we must empty ourselves of any human glory that gets in the way of receiving a heavenly one. We must instead journey to the margins, because it is there where the veil to heaven becomes thin enough to glimpse the divine.

Ponder

Who are the marginalized people in your community? What might it look like to position yourself to see God through them?

Pray

Inhale: You are “born to me.”

Exhale: May I receive your life.

Adapted from Making Room in Advent: 25 Devotions for a Season of Wonder. Copyright ©2022 by Bette Dickinson and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Used by permission. For more information, please visit www.ivpress.com/making-room-in-advent.