Day 25. Strange Insignia
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"This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Luke 2:12
What a strange sign this by which to recognize the King of glory! The shepherds would not find Him robed in purple garments, like the child of a prince — but wrapped in swaddling clothes. They would not find Him in a palace — but in a stable, with a feeding trough for His cradle. Is it not strange that the very marks and authentications of Messiah's character and mission, by which these shepherds recognized Him when they found Him — were these tokens of poverty and humiliation?
This tells us what empty things are the world's marks of greatness. No one would expect ever to recognize earthly royalty by any such insignia as these. When Christ came, He despised all the badges of rank by which men indicate greatness — and wore the insignia of earthly poverty and humiliation. Yet was He less great — because He did not bear the world's stamp of honour?
True greatness is in the character — never in the circumstances. It does not matter if you do not wear a crown — make sure that you have a head worthy of wearing a crown. It does not matter if you do not wear purple garments — make sure that you have a heart worthy of the purple. It does not matter if you do not have a throne to sit on — make sure that your life is regal in its own intrinsic character, that men will recognize the king in you, though your toil in the field or mine, or service in the lowliest place.
These strange tokens tell us also, of Christ's sympathy with the lowliest phases of life, with the plainest and poorest of the people. None can say that Christ never came to them. If He had been born in a palace amid splendours — then the common people would never have felt that He was their Saviour — as they feel now that He is. Christ went down and touched life at its lowest point — that there might be none to whom His mission of love and grace should not reach.
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