One of my favorite things to watch is The Olympic Games. Every time the Olympics come around, there is always a story about an athlete giving up the potential for gold in order to help another athlete. During a race or an event, an athlete will fall or get hurt, and another athlete will stop their event to carry the other athlete to the finish line.
It grabs the world’s heartstrings every time. We watch in amazement that this person who has spent their whole life training for this moment would give it all up to help another person. What an act of humility!
I think the world marvels because it is what we long for the normative story to be in our world. We all know that it is not. These moments give us a small glimpse into the humility of Christ.
Jesus had every right to come to earth and claim power and dominance over humanity. After all, He is God. Rather than wielding power and forcing others into submission. Jesus came as a humble servant. He gave up His rights as the Son of God in order to become our perfect sacrifice.
Let’s look at the qualities of Jesus’ humility.
- He did not take advantage of His position as the Son of God.
- He took on human flesh.
- He took on the form of a slave.
- He shared in our human nature.
- He obeyed the Father’s will to die on the cross.
Though this list is not exhaustive, it does present the complete “otherness” of Jesus’ humility. He perfectly embodies humility and that’s good news for us.
Had Jesus not lived a life of humility, we would have no hope.
But because He did fully obey to the point of death on a cross, you and I can have salvation for our sins.
As we celebrate this Advent season, we don’t merely celebrate the birth of a baby. We celebrate hope embodied and humility embodied, all for our sake.
This is the good news of the gospel.
Jesus became what we couldn’t so that we could be forgiven and restored into a never-ending relationship with God. He willingly walked to the cross, His body beaten and bruised. He was rejected by the very ones He came to save. He took on the weight of all the sins of humanity.
He could have stopped it at any point. He could have said, “I give up. These people aren’t worth it.” But He didn’t. He took on the full weight of God’s wrath, and He did so out of His great love. This had been God’s plan from the very beginning to send His one and only Son to save a broken humanity.
Now, for those who trust in Jesus as Savior, we are brought over from death to life and into God’s family.
This Christmas, as we sing “O Holy Night,” may the lyrics remind us of Paul words here in Philippians 2. May we fall on our knees in praise because confessing that the humble Savior, Jesus Christ, is Lord.
