Demotion

The curtain is methodically pulled apart and we get our first glimpse of the opening scene. In it we observe majesty and grandeur that obliterates our wildest and loftiest expectations. Our minds can only absorb a fraction of the experience. We see Jesus, “The Word,” who is with the Father, the great I AM. A rich bass voice disturbs the silence with a declaration that The Word has been present from the beginning, before the formation of anything. (John 1:1)

It is our expectation that the unfolding story will contain only adoration, praise and worship. For our part, we will spend our time simply echoing the words of Isaiah the prophet:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3)

Our hearts explode with vibrant adulation, this is our Lord. We would raise our voices, if we could find them amidst the glory. We are overcome. We are undone.

But Jesus, the worthy object of our praise, doesn’t cling tightly to this position. Instead, He steps out of the glory and into the mess. He exchanges celestial prominence for obscurity. What He had created with a word will now take His hands, His sweat, His hours. Our wonder becomes disbelief. The star of the story, The Word, joins the ranks of the created. He trades the six-winged adoring seraphim for the skeptics. He trades the worshiping angel chorus for the ridicule of the religious leadership. He trades the excellence of the heavenly realms for a workshop and a paycheck and blisters and pain.

Jesus took a demotion of unparalleled proportion. He emptied Himself, in obedience to the Father’s redemptive love, even to the point of being nailed to a cross. He defied the gravitational attraction of progressive power. He ushered us into the ministry of sacrifice and humility by going there first.

The Word, the sensational, glorious, majestic Word, the creator of all things, the maker of the simple and complex, “made himself nothing.” (Philippians 2:7)

The unfolding story of our own lives is informed and instructed by this humility. The clamor for power, the chaos of self-promotion receives the rebuttal of all time when The Word becomes the pursuer of the lost, when the only begotten becomes a man, when Spirit becomes flesh, when God comes to earth.

In all things Jesus shows us the way.