Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Humility and Glory



As part of Advent, I like to contemplate the mystery of the incarnation. I am coming to understand that although we think that we'd never do whatever horrible thing we heard someone else did--we really could have. Each one of us is immeasurably closer to the worst of us, than any of us are to Jesus. Ponder this for a moment--it's incredibly humbling. I prefer to think that I'm more like Jesus than I'm like the worst sinner, and skip over the humility involved in being human.

And then consider the mystery of Jesus choosing to share in our human condition. How humbling is that! Our sin was so egregious that the Son of God Himself had to die to rescue us.
What miserable offenders we are.

But that's not all we are. Each one of us was worth Christ's humiliation, sorrow and suffering. In the mystery of the incarnation, we also learn of our glory. Yes, we shall be glorified. We shall have glory...we shall have the approval and affirmation of the Father and we shall shine like the Morning Star.

In pondering the incarnation, I am shrunk down to size, and, my value explodes. I am a  human, but I am not a mere mortal! And neither are you. Each human, each and every one of us, will live forever.
Thanks be to Jesus that he took on human flesh and died in order to welcome us into His home and rescue us from the fate we deserve.

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