The royal line
He said to me, ‘You are my son;
Today I have begotten you.’ Psalm 2:7
Read 2 Samuel 7:4—14
I have sung carols about royalty: royal David’s city; glory to the new-born king; born a child and yet a king. The songs go beyond mere royalty, too: he came down to earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all. But when I trace this royal way into the world and into my heart, I find it such a hidden way. It is rural. David begins as a country shepherd boy. It is subtly remembered genealogy. This family tree was a dangerous one to remember. It was a claim to royalty. Take this man Joseph: what had been remembered had been passed down, kept throughout the generations in this humble family with a common trade in Nazareth village. Their royal blood had been sidelined, but they resolutely held to their family secret. It could become — it did become — a dangerous secret to hold.[1] This is part of the human story of how I come to have a king. I feel I am in on a conspiracy.
O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the subtle ways you have threaded your course into human history, easily disregarded, very easily, yet so persistently pursuing your children, so quietly at work, ready to appear unexpectedly as the flowering, as the fruiting of what has been maturing, as the manifesting of what has been hidden but active, as the pattern that has been woven in — yours is such an exhaustive work! You have never ceased working. You have so humbly made your way through the history of Israel and the story of humanity and the whole way to my little heart. The very events of this day have been taken up into your story. So I can say, ‘Glory to the newborn king,’ and I am at the heart of it all.
[1] Matthew 2:1—23