Glory Road
and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:8
Humbled – Jesus is our model, our standard. He is the One we look to for guidance, direction and purpose. When we look close enough, we find something amazing. The road to glory passes through humbling ourselves and the way to humble yourself is to be obedient unto death.
How many times have you read these words, heard this phrase or considered this truth, and then discovered how far you are from its application? Jesus, the Son of God, humbled Himself through obedience. Just think about how unimaginable that is. The sinless perfection of humanity still had to choose to submit, to make himself low, poor and needy by obeying. God as a slave – it just doesn’t compute. Yet, this is exactly what our Lord and Savior demonstrates. Is it any surprise that Jesus spent His time with the sick, the abused, the rejected, the poor and the desperate? He was one of them!
The Greek could not be stronger. Tapeinoo means “to humiliate, to make small, to bow down and to weaken.” The Greeks despised this condition. They exalted the glory of man and sought prominence in thought and action. To be a slave, a disgusting deterioration of what Man should be, was an unthinkable blight on humanity. Such people were no better than cattle. To choose to be a slave was simply unbelievable. The Greeks would have considered such a choice to be a total waste of human life.
Are we Greek when it comes to humbling ourselves? Most of us claim to follow the Master, but we are revolted by the conditions of the vast majority of the world’s population. We don’t want to hug the leper, clean the sewer, hold the dying child, wait on God for sustenance, live with the homeless, suffer political oppression or enter the third world hell-holes called jails. We want a clean evangelism experience. We are visitors, not residents. It is much safer at home. Just send a check.
We don’t see Jesus as one of the poor, the homeless or the oppressed. We think of Him as above all that, as a kind of divine visitor to the world’s unfortunate. When we read the gospels from a Greek perspective, we subtly remove Jesus from the filth, the disease, the sorrow and the abuse. His feet never really touch the ground. His hands never really come in contact with the rotting skin of leprosy. He doesn’t drink from the same well that the sick use. He’s God; therefore, He’s immune.
But that is not the Jesus of the Bible. That is the Jesus Who graces our churches with a peaceful gaze of divine protection. That is the Jesus Who is really untouched by human degradation.
If you want that sterile Jesus, go watch the movie. If you want the real Jesus, reconsider what it means to humble yourself through obedience. God doesn’t spend His time at the mall.
