Well, after thirty-five days, we finally have a President-elect. How many watched the speeches on Wednesday night? How many can’t remember who won? How many don’t care who won? It’s definitely one for the history books. All during the last five weeks, we’ve been hearing that this is a great lesson in democracy. But from my point of view, this has also been a great object lesson in the contrast between the values of this world and the values of the world to come. It’s a lesson that’s especially appropriate during the Advent season.
On the one hand, we have been witnessing a titanic struggle for the Presidency of the United States of America. This contest required the candidates to raise and spend over two hundred million dollars and invest over a year of their lives doing nothing but campaigning. It involved hundreds of staff people – pollsters, consultants, communications directors, policy advisors, travel agents. It commanded the full-time attention of dozens of newspaper and television reporters. And then, when the vote was counted and found to be so incredibly close, even more time and resources were focused on the election. Hundreds of lawyers. Dozens of people counting and recounting ballots. And all those judges – judges of local circuit courts, federal appeals courts, justices of the Florida Supreme Court, and finally, the United States Supreme Court. In the political arena, the highest value is power – how to get it, how to keep it, how to use it to maximum effect. And the Presidency is the most powerful office on earth. So it’s no wonder that so much time and money and effort went into the Presidential race.
But at the same time as this battle was going on, we’ve also been preparing to celebrate the anniversary of quite a different event. An event which concerns, not power, but humility. This event was little noticed at the time; aside from a few shepherds and a handful of wise men, no one paid any attention at all to the birth of Christ 2,000 years ago. “Powerful” certainly isn’t an adjective one would have used to describe either the baby or his parents. They had so little influence they couldn’t even secure a hotel room, not even with Mary being nine months pregnant. And so they slept in the barn with the livestock. They had so little money that when the time came for Mary to make an offering at the temple for her newborn son, they couldn’t afford the usual sacrifice of a lamb, and could only offer a couple of pigeons. [Read Luke 2:1-7]
This morning, I’d like for us to consider the radical humility of Christ, and how his humility can be an example for us as His followers. This is especially important for us today, because we live in an age when humility isn’t respected. Instead, it’s held in contempt. Anyone who tries to exercise humility is scorned as a weakling or a fool. The role models of our society are not the humble, but the selfishly ambitious, the proud, the arrogant. The people that our society looks up to – sports heroes, actors and actresses, singers, entertainers – they all tend to have one thing in common: a very high regard for themselves, and a great talent for self-promotion. Sometimes it seems that every time you turn on the television or open a newspaper, all you see and hear is “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” The one exception is politicians. Not that they’re especially humble, but at least they know it doesn’t look good for them to be constantly talking about themselves, so they hire press secretaries to do it for them.
Let me give you an example: football. It used to be that when a pro football player made a touchdown, he would just run off the field, or maybe spike the ball. Now, we have ten minutes of high fives, and moonwalks, and break dancing, and chest bumps, and jumping around, and taunting the other team – just an orgy of self-congratulation. I can’t really blame those men much. They’re just doing what their culture has taught them to do. But Christ points us in a different direction.
First of all, consider the humility of the incarnation itself, the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, taking on humanity with all of its limitations, with all of its pain and sorrow and suffering. Listen to how Paul describes it:
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” – 2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV)
What does that mean, “he became poor”? It means that he gave up his honor and glory, he let go of his position, he relinquished all of the riches of heaven, in order to become one of us, in order to save us from our sins. He gave up that glory in order to become a human baby. Not even an adult. That would be humility enough, to give up the glory of heaven to become a man. But instead he became a helpless little infant.
But think of it: the baby Jesus, completely at the mercy of Mary and Joseph. Unable to feed himself, unable to move about, to communicate. Unable to do anything except eat and sleep and dirty his diaper. And here’s the irony of it all. He is dependent upon the man and woman he made to now take care of him. If they had only known who he really was, Mary and Joseph would have bowed down and worshipped him, just like the shepherds and the wise men. But instead, Jesus had to rely on them. Those hands which had formed galaxies and set the stars in place, those hands that had spun the earth on its axis, now just waving around, ineffectually. The mouth that had spoken the universe into existence, now just babbling and cooing. The sovereign Lord of creation, had now become the very picture of weakness and powerlessness and inability – a little baby. Not even a royal baby, not the son of a king; not a wealthy baby, the son of money and privilege. But instead, a peasant child born to poverty and want, raised in very humble circumstances. Surrounded not by God’s holy angels and the glory of heaven, but instead surrounded by sinful, fallen human beings and a stinking, dirty barn.
Think about it: when people are struck with a serious illness, something progressively debilitating, so that they know over time they’re going to become less and less able to care for themselves, one of the things they fear most is losing control. Becoming dependent on someone else, at first needing someone to drive them places and perhaps prepare meals for them, and then eventually having to rely on other people for the basic necessities of life – to dress them, and feed them, and bathe them. Yet Jesus voluntarily took on this kind of complete helplessness, the kind that we fear so much.
Consider also that as a human being, Christ became subject to the whole Old Testament Law. He had to obey the ten commandments, including number five, “honor your father and mother.” Now, Mary and Joseph were not perfect parents. They weren’t all-knowing or all-wise. They weren’t sinless. There must have been times when Joseph had a bad day at work and yelled at Jesus for no reason. There must have been times when his parents disciplined him unfairly out of anger or frustration. But Jesus was sinless, which means perfectly obedient, not only to God but also to his earthly parents. He had to subject himself to them, had to obey them and respect them, even when he knew they were wrong, even when they were acting foolishly or sinfully.
Here’s a question for you: Have you ever had to submit to someone in authority whom you were convinced was your inferior? Parents who didn’t understand? A supervisor at work who had obviously been promoted beyond his ability; a police officer or judge who seemed extremely incompetent; a husband whose ignorance was matched only by his stubbornness? Then take heart from Christ’s example. Everyone he came into contact with truly was his inferior, including his own parents. Yet he never grumbled or complained, he never rebelled. Instead, he humbled himself and willingly yielded to their authority over him. He respected their authority, not because they necessarily deserved his respect. But because it was the right thing to do, because God the Father had placed him in a position of subjection to them. If Jesus could do it, then so can we. By His power, we can show respect and honor to those in authority over us, even when they don’t deserve it, even when we’re convinced they’re wrong.
But Christ’s humility didn’t end with his birth or his childhood. It continued throughout his life.
Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." – Mark 10:43-45 (NIV)
Just as Jesus humbled himself by becoming a helpless human infant, just as he humbled himself by honoring and obeying his parents, and ultimately, as he humbled himself by dying on the cross for our sins; so we are to humble ourselves in our relationships with one another.
“Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of 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!” – Philippians 2:2-8 (NIV)
Jesus was willing to give up the privileges of deity in order to become one of us, in order to give his life for our sins. In the same way, we are to follow Christ’s example, and respond to one another in humility. That’s where unity comes from. Each person seeking to serve rather than to be served.
So, if we’re supposed to be humble, what does it look like? First, humility isn’t pretending. It’s not acting as if you are something less than you really are. If you’re a first-rate pianist, and someone compliments you, humility isn’t saying, “Oh, well, I don’t really play so well.” That’s not humility; that’s not even being polite. That’s just lying. Humility means seeing things as they really are.
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment . . . . Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” – Romans 12:3-5 (NIV)
What does all this mean? It means that we should each think of ourselves as the Bible speaks of us. It says that we’re all sinners who deserve God’s judgment, but who have been forgiven in Christ and blessed with gifts and abilities. So humility doesn’t mean prancing around, saying “I’m the best” on one hand, or moping around, saying “I’m worthless” on the other hand. It means evaluating ourselves with sober judgement, acknowledging our gifts and abilities; but also recognizing that they come from God and are given to us by God to serve one another.
The second point, then, is that humility means recognizing that all of your gifts and abilities come from God. So your abilities or achievements are no reason to puff yourself up or act as if you somehow deserved to be honored and praised for them.
“For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” – 1 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV)
So whatever your ability is, rejoice in it! It’s a gift from God! Give Him the praise and glory!
But, you say, “I worked hard to develop these skills. I worked my way through college. I practiced the piano for hours a day” Or, in my case, “I studied Greek and Hebrew grammar for three years.” True enough. But who decided that you would be born in a country, where you would have the opportunities you had? Who gave you your brain? Who decided you would have the good health and financial resources to develop those skills? The answer is obvious. God did. Even if you worked hard to get where you are, you were only taking the raw materials that God gave you, and applying the strength and intelligence He gave you, to get there.
Third, humility means putting the needs of others ahead of your own. [Phlp. 2:3 – “consider others better than yourselves”] It means willingly giving up your ‘rights’ in order to serve others; not grudgingly, but thankfully. It means that you consider it a privilege to give up your time, and resources, and energy for your brothers and sisters in Christ. It means that instead of walking around expecting everyone else to serve us, as if we deserved to be catered to, as if we had a right to have our needs met, instead we treat others as if they deserved to have us serve them. It means that we consider their needs and interests to be as important and urgent as ours, even more so. Humility is not condescension, reaching down to serve someone inferior to me. Humility is recognizing that, before God, we are all of equal worth. Therefore, serving one another isn’t just a duty or an obligation. It’s a great privilege. It’s a privilege to serve God’s people with the resources and abilities He gave us. [Note: this includes your family!]
Let me insert one note here: there’s a difference between serving out of duty and obligation, and serving out of love and humility. If you’re just serving out of duty, you’re serving at your convenience. You make yourself available according to your schedule. But if you’re serving out of humility, you serve at the other person’s convenience, according to their need.
And finally, humility means accepting God’s love and forgiveness as a gift of grace. It means recognizing that there’s nothing we can do to earn or deserve God’s love. All we can do is receive it as a free gift. We can never repay Him, and He doesn’t want us to try. Once we truly understand God’s grace, once we’ve humbled ourselves to accept His gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, then we are better able to free give to one another and receive from one another, knowing that everything we have is a gift from God. That’s the ultimate lesson of Christ’s birth.
(For an .rtf file of this and other sermons, see www.journeychurchonline.org/messages.htm)
