I'm Too Proud To Be Humble Series

Introduction—humility. Someone once said, “Swallow your pride occasionally, it’s non-fattening”. I wish on a day like today that fruit cake, chocolate and pavlova were non-fattening. One of my favourite humility sayings is, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, its thinking of yourself less”.

A past British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill was once asked, “Doesn't it thrill you to know that every time you make a speech, the hall is packed to overflowing?” “It's quite flattering”, replied Sir Winston. “But whenever I feel that way, I always remember that if instead of making a political speech, I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big”.

Most of us would say that being humble is a nice way to be.

The story is told of a man who was so humble that his city council decided to honour him with a medallion for his humility. A week after the award ceremony, the award had to be withdrawn. Much to the embarrassment of the council, the man was proudly wearing the medallion everywhere he went.

Mary’s humility. Humility is an important part of the Christmas story. We see this in the book that Luke wrote about the life of Jesus. And Luke starts his book with the birth of Jesus. You’ve probably heard about the shepherds, the angels, no room in the inn, the angels singing. And Joseph and Mary being the unsuspecting couple.

Well, of course, Mary plays a key role and one of the reasons is her humility. When the angel of family planning appears it’s a rather frightening experience. I’ve never had an angel appear to me—not counting my wife—and I reckon it would be a little scary.

The angel comes and Mary humbles herself knowing she is speaking to a messenger from God. The angel tells her that she will bear a child which is a little confusing because she’s unmarried and therefore a virgin. But the angel says that God himself will overshadow her and in this remarkable way the child to be born will be the Son of God.

Mary is told also that her baby will be the fulfilment of many promises that God made long ago to his people. The promises he made to Abraham and David. Back in the old days God promised to fix the mess we humans are in by making promises and he made big promises to Abraham and David.

God promised that our big problem would get a big solution.

In our Christmas story, God tells Mary that she’s part of the big solution. Here’s Mary, a wee maiden living in the back blocks of Israel, being told that God is going to use her in a big way. It’s sort of like Scott Morrison (Prime Minister) knocking on my door and telling me I’ve got a key role in getting Australia back on its feet.

Except its God telling Mary that she’s got a big role in getting humanity back on its feet.

Mary responds to the angel by saying, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled” (Lk 1.38). It’s a humble response to things she doesn’t fully understand. In fact, Mary goes onto write, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant” (Lk 1.46–47).

I think we can really appreciate Mary’s humility.

God’s humility. But as humble as Mary is, there’s a greater expression of humility in the Christmas story. Have a look at these images from the Hubble telescope (3xslides). When we get a look at God’s creation there’s a sense in which we glimpse the size and power of God.

God is infinite and beyond our comprehension. I’m sure you know that It takes 24 hours for Earth to rotate on its axis to make a day, and 365 days to orbit around the sun for a year. But it takes around 230 million years for our solar system to complete a single orbit around the Milky Way. There are anywhere between 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way and an estimated 100 billion planets.

And God made all this … and much more.

God is also Spirit. He is not confined by the flesh. He doesn’t have a physical body. And God is also personal. In the vastness of the universe, he chooses to speak to Mary. Is it not amazing that the God of all infinity would choose to become like us? Is that not real humility? That God would come to earth and we call him Jesus.

There’s another part of the Bible that ponders this fact. Let me read it to you:

Though he was God, Jesus did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. (Phil 2.6–8, NLT)