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One of the more famous elements in Arthurian legend is the Sword in the Stone. On the pedestal are the words to the effect that “whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil is the rightwise king born of all England.”
All the barons and nobles take their turns trying to lift it. That’s what you would expect, that someone of royalty would be the next King of England. Yet though they all try, they all fail.
Now Uther Pendragon, the previous king, had a son no one knew about: Arthur. This boy, now a teenager, was raised by another and serving as a squire. A seeming nobody, in some versions not even knowing what he was doing or what it meant, Arthur is the only one who is able to lift the sword from the stone. He goes on to be the greatest legendary king of Britain for all time.
While it was known that the sword had to be pulled from the stone, no one knew it would be a random teenage squire who accomplished it.
Today we see something similar in our Scripture. We hear the words of the Prophet Isaiah as well as all the quotes Paul shares with the Romans. All these statements point to one who will lead and guide Israel and all the other nations into an age of peace and transformation.
Yet no one had any idea who or what this person would be. Since this great person, a messiah even, would come from Jesse’s house, the father of the great King David, it was thought by many that this would person should also be a great ruler. Some even thought this person would be a mighty warrior, just as David had been.
Instead, we got the son of a τεκνον, a toolmaker, who grew up in the backwater town of Nazareth, a place so unremarkable that we would not have been sure that today’s Nazareth was the same place if it hadn’t been for recent (rather “recent-ish”) archaeological work.
This toolmaker didn’t come in as a great warrior into the world. Instead, He rode into the great city of Jerusalem on a donkey. He didn’t spend his years as a ruler. In fact, he didn’t even travel all over the world! He spent the vast majority of his time teaching in the small corner of Galilee, not far from where He grew up, with a bunch of fishermen.
When it came to His birth, it wasn’t grand. He wasn’t born in a palace. Instead, He was placed in a manger, which is a feeding trough for animals. He was likely put there because it was near the only place His mother could find any peace in the cave they would inevitably been staying in since there was nowhere else for them to go.
This person foretold’s name was Jesus, and He was not at all what would have been expected by the people of old. It took many years for people like Paul to help interpret who the Prophets truly meant and what God was really saying to us through their words. Jesus was someone who had to be announced beforehand, as we see in our Gospel through the work of John the Baptist, because He was not what was expected. The words of the ancient Prophets took time to be truly understood by the people.
Jesus was not at all what would have been anticipated as the prophesied Messiah. He might not be what we expect now. In this time of Advent, a season or preparation, we must prepare our hearts and minds to see Jesus as He really is. If we can do that, if we can truly listen to what John the Baptist, Paul, and the Prophets of Old are really saying to us, then we can let our Lord into our hearts as we come to understand Him and what His work was and is in this world.