The King and the Commoner
Once upon a time there was a king who fell deeply in love with a common maiden. As Soren Kierkegaard tells the story, the very nature of love is that it seeks equality and unity. It is only in equality and unity that an understanding can be achieved. For a king to love a commoner there are problems. In his love he desires nothing less than the happiness of the beloved. How can he achieve this sense of equality? The story develops three alternatives to the kingly problem.
The first is that of marrying his beloved and ignoring the differences between them. This might appear a good move on the surface, but the king has thought long about the nature of their love and desires above all her happiness. Would she be able to forget the differences of the past that after all she was a commoner and he was the king? There might come a time in which their love would be blighted by the memories of the past, and the glory of their love be spoiled. There might be a time in which the king would awake from sleep to find his beloved weeping over the inequality
of their love. This is not a viable alternative for the king.
The second alternative is one that might be suggested by a counselor: the king could display all of his power, majesty, greatness and prestige to his beloved and she could fall at his feet accepting him as her king. Such a suggestion would mean that the king would be doing the maiden a kind deed for which she should be grateful. But such an alternative deprives love of its basic aim to unite equals.
This second alternative amounts to treason against his beloved. For such a thoughtless suggestion the king might take off the head of such an adviser. Kierkegaard's story relates that it would be harder for the king to be her benefactor than to lose her.
A third alternative must be sought and it is only implied in the story: the king can abdicate and become a commoner and be the equal of his beloved.
At this point, the story is retold with its application to God who is the lover seeking to have a loving relation with His created image: mankind. How can God express his love when love requires equality?
The first alternative is like the king. God can accept man, fill his life with joy, and man might be inclined to accept this relationship unchanged. But there is the memory of the past rebellion, self-deception on man's part, and there might come the time when man is haunted by his past, and love would be spoiled.
The second alternative is that God could display openly His majesty, holiness, greatness and power. Man could fall to his knees and have a worshipful relationship with God. But God desires not His own glorification, but His beloved. This alternative is even more complicated than the king's problem. There is a statement about God from the past that "no man could see God and live." "Who grasps this contradiction of sorrow: not to reveal oneself is the death of love, to reveal oneself is the death of the beloved! " (p.23) Thus if God chose this alternative man would not survive in His holy presence. But if love is not expressed to the beloved, love is lost. Consequently, God cannot pursue this alternative for the safety of the beloved -- man. Another alternative must be sought.
The story indicates a third alternative: God can abdicate, descend, become a commoner, an equal of man. The humblest one is a servant. This is how love can find equality. If God is love, He doesn't send a substitute, He comes Himself. This is what happened in Bethlehem--God came down! There He grows up and walks beside the Sea of Galilee - God with us! Since this is not play-acting, God must suffer all things, endure all things, make experience of all things. He must suffer hunger in the desert, He must thirst in the time of His agony, He must be forsaken in death, absolutely like the humblest - behold the man." (p.25)
This story shows the importance of God's act for our understanding of God. We come to know God because God has come down. God comes in love because love assumes the initiative. God comes in a way that is protective for man's life. But also, God comes in redemption and help for His people. Some of this truth is expressed in the Gospel of John that the Word was with God and the Word was God. Then the striking phrase comes: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." (1: 18) There are many reasons people celebrate Christmas, but the most profound one is that God's love is expressed in an event that is common to man, but which carries the uncommon fact of God's love expressed in or being incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
(Quotations from Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958.)