all I want for Christmas is a shirt with sleeves
This morning I was touched by the Christmas spirit through a very unlikely source: a Kenny Chesney song. That's right, Kenny Chesney, the hit country superstar who doesn't seem to own a single shirt with sleeves. Through some confusion at Columbia House Music, I ended up with his heartwarming Christmas album, All I Want for Christmas is a real good tan. It arrived yesterday, just in time to stir up the magic of Christmas in my cold heart.Against my better judgment, I opened the CD and popped it my car's CD player last night, but I didn't drive much so I never got past the third song. This morning I forgot the CD was in the player, but I let it go. The seventh track is what hit me. Here are the lyrics to Just a Kid:
Well the news spread through Jerusalem, tonight a child is born
There are shepherds fallin' to their knees, and angels blowin' horns
But in their golden halls the Pharisees scoffed and drank their wine
They said "it's only Hebrew prophesy, we don't care and besides
He's just a kid, that's all He is.
One more pebble in the gravel, one more rumor in the rabble.
How can He be king?
He's just a kid."
Well in no time it seemed the world was knockin' on His door
Performing miracles and wonders they had never see before
Soon the Pharisees stopped laughing, the silver sum was paid
And near the end He knelt down in the garden and He prayed:
I'm just a kid
That's all I am
I'll need Your strength to see me through it
If it is Your will I'll do it
But how can I be king
I'm just a kid?
Now I think about the Baby and the Man at Christmas time
Of mothers, sons and fathers and children just like mine
About the power in unselfishness, love and sacrifice
The Gift that we were given and the price.
How the news spread through Jerusalem, tonight a child is born
There are shepherds falling to their knees, and angels blowin' horns
I wonder how on Earth the Pharisees could scoff and drink their wine
And say "He's only Hebrew prophesy, we don't care and besides
He's just a kid, that's all He is.
One more pebble in the gravel, one more rumor in the rabble.
And how can He be king?
He's just a kid"
Oh how can He be king?
He's just a kid.
The whole idea of Jesus being all man, but also all God is something that I have been pondering quite a bit lately. At church on Sunday my pastor was talking about how Christ came into the very creation that He created, and basically started from scratch. He got me thinking about things I have thought of before, but haven't really thought about in a while. How Jesus became just like you and me. He learned to walk just like you and I did. He learned to talk, read, use proper grammar (Hebrew, I assume, but do we really know?), eat with utensils, honor His mother and father, and not get into fights with the other kids. He played hide and seek, He fell and scraped His knees, maybe He broke an arm or a leg in some rough game of Hebrew football. Maybe He had crooked teeth and a base case of acne, and maybe He went through that awkward stage where He was nervous to talk to girls.
It's so wild to think of this Deity shuffling along the dusty roads on his way home from school or the temple, maybe taking a detour to run to the creek and skip some stones or go jumping into a cool river on a hot, sticky summer day. And yet, even though He came and walked this earth and seemed so much like you and I, He was set apart. He came to save us, and He knew that was His purpose even as a child. Talk about having the weight of the world on His shoulders ... this little guy really did. And yet this kid was more than "just a kid" ... He was a kid-sized king.
If Kenny Chesney only knew how his song inspired me.
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