Away in a manger, no crib for a bed

I just keep laughing to myself thinking about a conversation I overheard at the Thanksgiving dinner table. We have some young cousins. Mom to young cousins shared that they'd just bought the Little People Nativity Set for the kids. Well, Cousin is playing with the Little People Baby Jesus and realizes that He is laying in the hay in a barn. So she instructs Mom to go get her Little People Castle Set

so "Baby Jesus can have somewhere nice to sleep." Of course we all laughed at this cute story of the imagination of a little girl. But, the more I think about it, the more profound it seems to me.

She looked at Jesus, next to the animals, in a bed of hay, and she looked at her castle, with its nice big pink bed with pillows and blankets, and she saw the obvious disparity. She recognized immediately that Jesus deserved a better bed. I think she saw something that we've seen so many times that we've just started to ignore it. "Yeah, yeah, Jesus was born in a stable. No, he didn't have any clothes. Or a real bed. What's that? Well...yeah...He was a King."

Jesus humbled Himself. I'm sure she wouldn't use those words, but that's what she saw. Can you even see that anymore? Can you look beyond the familiar story and see the reality? The nativity scene should shock us every time we see it. We should sense the inequality of the King of the Universe sleeping in a feeding trough. And we should understand that Jesus absolutely willingly chose to be there. Chose to be born that way. Chose to live life here. Chose to die for us. Chose to raise to new life and give us the right to become children of God. This should blow our minds. Every time.