Two days ago, a son was born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, probably more well known as Prince William and Kate Middleton.
I remember waking up on Monday and checking Twitter, my source of the daily headlines to see that during my sleep I had missed that Kate had gone into labor and everyone was on “Royal Watch.” So the world waited and waited until the announcement came that she had given birth to a son.
Since then, it’s been the headline. Everywhere.
And can I just say how ridiculously AMAZING Kate looked 24 hours after giving birth to a child? I mean, seriously. Incredible.
The new unnamed royal baby is now third in line to rule England, after Queen Elizabeth passes away. Third. After Prince Charles (his grandfather) and his own father Prince William.
All the anticipation of the royal birth made me think of another birth oh so many years ago and this baby wasn’t even third in line. Why?
Because He was already a king.
With all the media and hoopla of awaiting this birth of the royal baby, it made me wonder If Jesus Christ was born in 2013, would it be as big of a spectacle? These last two months have been craze filled awaiting some famous people’s babies (ie Kim Kardashian’s new one and the Royal baby…) I mean think about it.
We’re all familiar with the story. An angel came to Mary, who was in a relationship with Joseph and told her she was going to have a child. Talk about having faith! You GUYS! They weren’t even married, let alone had even had sex. Now, if you’ve never seen the film Miracle of Life and understand the real miracle of bringing a baby into the world, please do yourself a favor and educate yourself. But it truly was a miracle that Mary, a virgin, was with child. (I seriously can’t imagine how Joseph reacted, but I have a feeling it could have been something like this or maybe not…)
But 9 months later, Mary and Joe find themselves traveling to his hometown and they can’t find any place to stay. So they stay in a barn and there Jesus is born. In a barn! Mary and Joe knew he was going to be something special, more special than your parents ever told you that you were because, well, he was the son of God. The son of God. WHAT?!?! Here’s the difference between these royal births. There was no royal announcement. No town crier to announce to the whole world that a royal, baby boy was born. No crowd standing for hours outside of the hospital awaiting their first glimpse of him. No trending hashtags on Twitter. It was almost the complete opposite, minus the angels that appeared to the shepherds and when the wise men came to visit many years later, it was like that night nothing happened. No one knew.
I’m happy for William and Kate because bringing a baby into the world, knowing what his life will be like is an incredible thing. But I can’t help but to think what Mary and Joseph thought about what their son would do. I mean, every parent dreams of what their child will end up like and pray they’re successful. But I wonder if they had ANY idea the impact he would have on the world.
He died to save us all.
And no royal, no matter how powerful will ever compare to what Jesus did for the world. Over the last few days, all anyone can talk about is the royal birth and it amazes me how little we talk about Jesus.
Wouldn’t you want to tell everyone about the man who died to save you so that you could live?
That question’s been running through my mind, like song on repeat.
Why do I care so much about what a certain celebrity wore, or what they named their child, etc–the meaningless things in life, when really I should be like the town crier and telling everyone how ecstatic I am of how GOOD my God is. Maybe with a different outfit and I would definitely lose the bell, but you get what I mean.
Last week at church, Senior Pastor Dave Smith of the Collegedale Church spoke at Connect on priorities. (Check out that sermon here) I had to sit up a little straighter in my chair to tune in exactly what he was talking about.
It’s so easy to get lost in the confusion and mess of the world. I mean really easy. And we all reach a point in our lives where we understand that those things really shouldn’t be important. There’s more to life than those temporary things. That Christ should be our focal point.
So instead of focusing on the I’m sure ever so adorable royal baby watch (because let’s be real, we all want to know what his name is going to be), let’s shift our focus to a more important baby. Jesus. The one who was born so many years ago to then grow up to be a man that decided to die for you, so that you could choose to live eternally with Him.
Lauren Brooks 