Incarnation - the Humiliation of God

Jesus comes on the scene, and immediately we are made to realize that here is One that is Great because of His humility. Here is One who can take note of the things that are meaningless to others; for He (like the hyssop) was but a "Root of a dry ground." Here was One who "had no form nor comeliness"... One who could not get enthralled about the mighty and the noble; or share the enthusiasm of the disciples about the splendour of the Temple; but who saw beauty in the "lily of the field"... One who would not break the "bruised reed," or quench the "smoking flax."

True greatness does not stand apart, above and beyond the ordinary. True greatness is always identified with humility and weakness and insignificance and lowliness.

That is why the great and mighty God of the universe who created all things could not for ever remain high and lifted up in the heavens... with a reputation of being mighty and powerful, but unconcerned about the needs of the people whom He created. He must come down and show Himself as He really is: for God the Father, living in His own Son in all His fulness, truly revealed Himself as He really is: meek, and lowly, and compassionate. A God who is concerned when the sparrow falls to the ground, mortally wounded by the archer. God takes note of it because He is so great. Jesus said that two of them were sold for a far-thing, and five of them for two farthings, And so one was just thrown in for good measure... just forgotten. But not even this forgotten sparrow was forgotten by God.

God has been greatly maligned by the peoples of the earth who worship careless, cruel, indifferent, and dictatorial gods who have brought them nothing but bondage and oppression. And so in answer to the prayer of the prophet, God rent the heavens and came down, and showed men what He was really like. I do not mean to start a theological argument, for I feel I have gone beyond that; but it bothers me that so many Christians should think of God the Father as One Person... and God the Son another. The mystery of the three-in-one I do not profess to comprehend (any more than I can comprehend that I am three-in-one, and made in His image). But God wants us to know that when His Son walked this earth, God the Father was in that Man, walking in His sandals.

And when Jesus mingled amongst men as the sinless and spotless One, showing mercy and compassion to the multitudes, it was God the Father living in His Son and walking in His Son and showing mercy through His Son. And when He spoke words of Truth, it was God the Father revealing His own heart, and showing forth His own love and mercy towards men. And when He hung on the Cross... it was not a case of God the Father being indifferent to the cries of His Son as He suffered this unspeakable anguish... but in the truest sense of the word, God the Father was Himself suffering the pain of every nail that went into His hand, and every thorn that pierced His brow. And when a soldier took his sword and thrust it into the side of Jesus...

Jesus felt it as a man, and God the Father who dwelt within Him felt it as the Creator of the soldier that pierced Him. Yes, it was God the Father who willingly subjected Himself to the full measure of weakness, and poverty, and humiliation and suffering-in order to remove the "curse" which He Himself had laid upon man because of his transgression!