There’s no shortage of carols that make much of the Christmas story’s wild dichotomies: a “king” born to poor parents, sheltering with animals in a barn; foreshadowings of a hero destined for a tortured death, appearing to fall far short of the glorious revolution he was expected to lead; a seemingly ordinary newborn surrounded by the extraordinary—a magical star and strange mystics who walk miles to bestow exotic gifts. And as if that wasn’t enough, a choir of angels! (I’d like to hear a recording of those voices.)
My favorite carol, likewise highlighting the disconnect between garden variety newborn and uber-messiah, is “Christ Child Lullaby,” an ancient Scots Gaelic song that originally had twenty-nine verses. Beyond its haunting, simple melody, and no matter which of its lyrical versions you hear, one distinction is its point of view. The point of view (as fiction writers like to say) is Mary’s, who seems as amazed over the birth as the day the archangel Gabriel broke the crazy news to her about the pregnancy.
Likely just a teenager, she isn’t simply cooing over her baby as any first-time mother might. Instead, she senses something that will far transcend breastfeeding and baby’s first word. Looking at a version that condenses the song to three verses, the first is: “My love, my treasured one are you; / my sweet and lovely son are you. / You are my love, my darling, you. / Unworthy I of you.”
Who today admits to being unworthy of anyone else? The assumption of every social media wannabe, every power-crazed politician, every ordinary Joe who lusts after the world’s attention is that they are as worthy of adulation as anyone else because, well, it doesn’t really require a good reason. Or any reason. You’re worthy because you exist.
Or because, surely, you couldn’t be unworthy. That would trigger the knee-jerk of a wrong in need of righting. Though sometimes that’s the proper response, there’s a broader sense of unworthiness that becomes more palatable when it hints of someone or something so different from us that comparison becomes ludicrous. So it’s oddly fitting that the source of the song writer’s sense of unworthiness in this case is a squirming, crying baby. The song’s second verse portrays a Mary who perceives distinctions that will set her son apart: “Your mild and gentle eyes proclaim the loving heart with which you came. / Tender, helpless tiny babe with countless gifts of grace.”
How these adjectives—mild, gentle, loving, tender, helpless, tiny—contrast with the ethos of our age, where bold self-worth is so exalted that unworthiness is as welcome as a feminist convention in Afghanistan. The voices dominating the public square are strident, demanding, offended, unloving, unforgiving, and assuming a gentler tone is reckoned as pathetic weakness, foolish submission. It’s as if one can’t be taken seriously unless a complaint or a political position is delivered at fever-pitch—reason or compromise or respect be damned.
Amid such crude theater, pandering to low common denominators, it’s hard to see where “countless gifts of grace” could fit in. That’s whether you consider grace as “simple eloquence” and “courteous goodwill,” as some definitions put it, or its more spiritual meaning. Christianity often uses “unmerited” to describe God’s grace, yet so many modern grievances hinge on merit. Every individual merits certain privileges because of fairness, because all lives matter, because the U.S. Declaration of Independence guarantees “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as “unalienable Rights.” All well and good, but does that leave room for the concept of something being unmerited? Is there anything we truly need that we don’t deserve? Once you place ultimate trust in yourself or lawmakers or in the mirage of an innate goodness of people, there’s little role for grace.
And, likewise, no need for a source of grace, as pointed to in the final verse of the song: “King of kings, most holy one. / God the son, eternal one. / You are my God and helpless son, high ruler of mankind.” Mary, with her unique point of view and Holy Spirit infusion, can resolve what for others would be cognitive dissonance: the reality of gracious kingship bound up in the “helpless son” staring her in the face.
Perhaps she sensed the relative smallness of the contribution she’d make in raising this “most holy one” whose full purpose was beyond her fathoming. The purpose is clearer for us, having New Testament revelation, yet we lust after the same fruit that tempted Adam and Eve. As we secretly harbor scaled versions of being a “high ruler of mankind” —via wealth, comfort, prestige, personal brand—do we ever see ourselves as helpless sons needing grace? Are we willing to fret over the needs of the helpless sons in our midst more than our regal aspirations?
In this Advent season and beyond, may we be those whose daily lives, whose most ordinary conversations, reveal us as mild, gentle, loving, and tender in most interactions, yet equipped with the fortitude of the grown-up Babe. He didn’t shirk from flipping over merchant tables and wielding a whip when circumstances called for it. As much as we’re able, we can sow, not discord and self-righteousness, but in our own way, “countless gifts of grace.” And may we not forget our own need for grace, each of us as unworthy as the next guy.
Max Heine, a retired journalist, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Atlanta, GA. His work has appeared in Image and other Christian publications. He is the author of Children: Blessing or Burden? and has written and edited other Christian books.