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Degrading God
Today’s Faithblog was written by a good friend of mine, Jared White. I met Jared whilst studying for our M.Div degrees. He is currently the Senior Pastor of Centennial Park Baptist Church in Saanichton, BC (greater Victoria) and has a BA in biblical studies and an MDiv from ACTS. Like me Jared is a straight shooter, so I know you will be challenged and blessed by his message. I’ll be back on Friday. Blessings, Chris.
Back in 2008 I had the privilege of conversing with a Muslim gentleman who is exploring Christianity and is making his way through the Gospel of Matthew for the first time. When he made it to Matthew 5 he was puzzled at the fact that Jesus could possibly be tempted. If Jesus was almighty God, as Christians claim, how could he have been tempted? In response I had to explain that although Jesus was (and is) fully God, he was (and is) also fully human just like we are. My Muslim friend responded in this way: “To degrade himself in order to look like one of his creations is considered Blasphemy by [Muslims].”
His response got me thinking. Did God degrade himself to become human in Jesus Christ? The word degrade essentially means “to be humiliated and suffer a loss of status.” Taken in this way, yes, God degraded himself to become a human being. Philippians 2 puts it this way:
“Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:6-8 NIV)
God loved you and me so much he lowered himself, emptied himself and became human and then lowered himself even further to the most humiliating, shameful and torturous death ever conceived–death on a cross. He took the punishment we deserve for our sin so that we could become the sacred and radiant masterpieces we were always meant to be.
So, yes, God degraded himself when he became a human being… but that is what is so amazing about the true message of Christmas we have just celebrated—what Christians call the “incarnation.” God became a human being, truly a human just like you and I are. His name is Jesus.
What that means is that God really learned to walk and crawl. God really learned his Hebrew alphabet and how to read like us. He really learned to use the bathroom, he probably burped, passed gas, snored, blew his nose, had body odor. In his teens Jesus may have experienced pimples. For all we know, the other kids made fun of him.
It’s not irreverent to talk about God in this way but rather this is precisely what his humanity is all about! The Bible says that Jesus Christ, who is God, was like us in every way except that he never once did anything wrong. What this means is that we have a God who really knows what you are going through because he has walked a mile in your shoes.
My prayer for my Muslim friend and anyone reading this blog is that they would meet this God who loved them so much that he degraded himself for them.
Jared White