TEXT:

SUBJECT: Jesus Humbled Himself

To save us from our sin and misery, God humbled Himself. The stages of His humiliation are grouped in different ways, but I’m satisfied with the layout of the Shorter Catechism. God took five giant steps down.

First, He became a man. To you and me, humanity is a high privilege, for man is made in the Image of God and given dominion over the world. But for God, it is a low insult. To be the Image of God is less than being Divine. Yet the Lord’s human nature was not Divine, but human only.

Second, He became a man at the bottom. He was not born into a noble family, of a noble race, at a noble time. His family was poor and despised, His nation was enslaved, and His society was rotten to the core.

Third, He was born under the Law. The Law of God is good, but it is not easy. Starting with His circumcision at eight days old, the Law inflicted a great deal of pain. Some years later, a devout Jew called it a yoke on our necks, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. Yet bear it He must and bear it He would.

Fourth, He was subject to long and hard suffering. He grew up with parents who did not understand Him and with siblings who were ashamed of Him. When He came to manhood, He was driven into the wilderness to fast for forty days and to take all the malice Satan had been saving for Him since the Fall. His public ministry was full of contradiction, slander, and physical persecution. At the end, He was arrested and spat upon, beaten and mocked, crowned with thorns and nailed to a cross for everyone to see and ridicule.

Fifth, He died and was buried. For three days and nights, the Prince of Life lay in death. It was a death that demoralized His friends and called His every claim into doubt.

In one way, His humiliation is like other men’s, only worse. But, in fact, it is wholly unlike other men’s for the simple reason He had a choice. He could have said No to the embarrassments of becoming a man and living a man’s life. But He didn’t say No. He said Yes, and His Yes was not given with hesitation and doubt. It was eager Yes.

That’s the Yes our Lord gave to His humiliation and to what came from it: our salvation. This is the One we remember at the Lord’s Table. The One who Being in the form of God…humbled Himself.

Hymn 155—All Praise to Thee Eternal Lord (tune #93)

FIRST READING—Philippians 2:5-8

Hymn 192—Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted

SECOND READING—II Corinthians 8:8

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Lord’s Supper

Closing Hymn 218—All Hail the Power