The Mystery of “The Soul Felt It’s Worth” by David Fulk
“After Jesus was born, Magi came and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born?’ On coming to the house, they saw the child, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they presented him with gifts.” (Matthew 2:1-2 and 11)
Seeing isolated lyrics from O, Holy Night as devotional themes, I realize how we can hear or sing a song so often we overlook the mystery of a phrase like the soul felt its worth.
Today’s text is set just days after the birth and already people are showing up to see the baby. It’s understandable, really. The day our Davis was born, we were with Carolyn’s mother, LaVerne; second dad, Bill Riggs; and photographer, Dan Triplett, who captured the blessed event and the delivery room clock marking the birth at 1:27.
Late that afternoon while Gwen Phillips and her sister Janie were meeting Davis, we heard the very unexpected, yet unmistakable, ringing voice of a dear friend from Columbia, Mo, Beth Nelms. She’d arrived at the nurse’s station asking, “Where’s the Fulk baby?” (A particularly fond memory this year as Beth died in October.)
This Magi passage prompts other vivid memories. In 7th grade, with a high soprano voice, I sang the lead role in Amahl and the Night Visitors. It’s Carlo Menotti’s operetta about a poor, disabled shepherd boy and his mother who receive most unexpected visitors traveling to see a baby. Twenty years later in a 2BC production, I sang the role of King Melchoir who tells the mother the significance of the baby:
The child we seek doesn’t need our gold.
On love alone he will build his kingdom.
He will hold no scepter; wear no crown.
His might will not be built on your toil.
He will walk among us…bring us new life…
And the keys to his city belong to the poor.
After an Advent of waiting, after celebrating the birth, we, too, must seek the baby. And when we find the child as the Magi did, let us bow down, worship, and present our gifts. It’s in that moment, the mystery of the soul felt its worth will be revealed.