St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians chapter 2 speaks to the humilty of Jesus. He invites us to have the mind of Christ,
"but in humility count others to be better than yourself...have the mind of Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."
The humility of Christ is by the mere fact of the incarnation, that is he chose to become one of us. God in every way, chose to take on our flesh and bone and blood; he decided to bear the weight of our humanity, with all its frailty and drag it all the way to the cross.
This meditation is sufficient for a life time of pondering the depth of humility.
Yet, there is another aspect of the humility of christ that is often over looked.
As we have been reading the 2nd book of kings this week in the mass. We encounter another side of the humility of Christ.
The historical count of the kings is not very pleasant to read. Most of the accounts begin with the name of the king, the name of their mother, and then a description of what kind of king they were.
Most of the descriptions are summed up in one little phrase, "and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord." The kings rebelled against the plan of God and time and time again, led the people astray.
They did what was evil in the sight of the lord.
What is most humiliating about this lineage of Kings is that this is the lineage that comes up in the ancestry genealogy of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew and Luke.
Jesus, not only chose to be human, but he chose to enter into a ancestry line that time and time again did evil in the sight of the Lord.
What humility for our Lord to embrace so that we might be exalted.
From evil he chooses to bring good. From the long line of those who did evil in the sight of the Lord, a long line of infidelity, we now have the Eucharist, the one good memory of fidelity.
This is what humility offers to each of us!
No comments:
Post a Comment