Power Looks Different Here

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He Doesn't Look Like the King — And That's the Point

One of the reasons being aligning with Jesus is a struggle is, he doesn't fit here. Almost everything he presents goes against our inclinations or the way this world operates. And one of the biggest ways he doesn't meet our expectation is in the idea of POWER – he just doesn't look like a King. And while we might not expect a palace in this day and age, he still doesn't fit.

There is good news here – for you – so let's look at the very first scene of Jesus' life.

Luke 2:11 is a good place to start with this:

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." — Luke 2:11

This verse comes right after the angel tells a group of shepherds not to be afraid. It's the actual content of the announcement — the reason the sky just lit up over their field in the middle of the night.

Here's why this verse really matters. Three titles get stacked into one sentence: Savior, Christ, and Lord. Each one is important.

"Christ" means Anointed One — the promised King from David's line, which is exactly why Luke names "the city of David" in the same breath. This isn't a vague spiritual title. It's the angel saying, the King we've been waiting for since the promise to David is here, right now, tonight.

"Lord" goes even further. In the Old Testament these shepherds knew, "Lord" was the word used for God's own personal name. The angel isn't saying a great leader has been born. He's saying God himself has shown up — and the throne he's claiming isn't just David's throne, it's the throne over everything. This baby isn't a King who reports to a higher authority. He is the authority.

So before we get to the manger and the field, the announcement has already made its claim: this is the sovereign King of Israel, the sovereign God of Israel, in one person. And the address he chose for his arrival was a feeding trough, told first to people working the night shift in a field.

So, here's where it would be easy to misread what's happening. It's tempting to think the lowliness softens the kingship — like he's a King, but don't worry, he's the approachable kind. That's not quite it. The humility isn't a contradiction of his power, and it isn't a delay of his power either, like he'll get around to reigning later once he's grown up and proven himself. The concealment is the power, already at work. The same sovereign rule that could have arrived with armies chose a manger instead, and chose it on purpose. This is what Paul means later when he writes that Christ, being in very nature God, emptied himself — and that this very emptying is the path to the name above every name. The manger isn't a detour from the throne. It's how this King takes the throne.

Think about what it feels like to find out someone important noticed you on your most ordinary, unremarkable day — the day you weren't dressed up, weren't performing, and weren't trying to impress anyone.

It's sort of like a man alone on the fortieth floor of an empty office tower at 3am. Everyone else has gone home. He runs a buffer machine across acres of marble floor that no one will even glance at tomorrow — by the time the building fills up again, nobody will think about who made it shine, or that anyone was even there. Far below, the sleeping city stretches out in every direction, full of people who have no idea this floor was ever dirty, or that someone cared enough to make it right while they were asleep.

That's the kind of place this King chose for his first move. Not a palace. Not an audience of people who mattered. A field, in the dark, in front of people far removed from anyone important.

This previews everything. The way Jesus begins is the way he keeps going — eating with tax collectors nobody else would sit with, stopping in a crowd for a woman everyone else avoids, noticing a widow's two small coins when no one else even turned their head.

His posture toward the overlooked isn't something he develops over time. It's there from the very first sentence anyone ever hears about him. And because this posture belongs to the sovereign King, not just a kind teacher, it isn't a posture that depends on your performance. A King who rules by his own choosing can also love by his own choosing — and he does.

J.I. Packer puts words to this. He writes about the self-humbling of the Son of God:

The eternal Son choosing littleness as the very way he reveals himself.”

Packer's point is that this isn't an accident but rather it's the gospel on display before Jesus has spoken a single word or performed a single miracle.

God's own Son was not announced to rulers or the religious elite, but to shepherds — in a place as ordinary as a manger.

You being ordinary isn't a barrier to this King. This is where he always shows up. You don't earn your way into an audience with the King. The shepherds didn't clean up or present credentials before the sky opened over them. The King simply came to where they already were — choosing a field as his first stop.

What the text says here is… God's own Son, the promised King of David's line and the Lord himself, was born and announced first to shepherds — ordinary night-shift workers — not to rulers or religious leaders, in a place as humble as a feeding trough.

And this means… you being ordinary is not a barrier to this King — it never was. The same sovereign posture that sent an angel to a field instead of a palace is the posture he still holds toward you. You don't need to dress up your life or prove you're significant enough before he'll notice you. He has already shown, from his very first moments, that the King who could have arrived in power chose to arrive in the exact ordinary place you're at right now — and that choice was never a sign of weakness. It was the King, ruling.

Father, you are the God who chooses to dwell with the lowly, not just the impressive. Forgive me for assuming my ordinary life puts me far from your attention. Thank you for sending your Son first to people nobody else was watching. Cause me to believe that the same posture Jesus had toward shepherds, he has toward me. In Jesus' name we pray —

Remember: he doesn't look like the King you expected — and that's the point, because the manger was never a mistake; it was the plan.