HE HUMBLED HIMSELF

Our theme today could very well have been scheduled for Christmas time, which is only a month and a half away, because an essential part of our discussion in Christ's humiliation is His coming down to earth in the form of a servant. In 2 Corinthians 8: 9, Paul writes: "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." As the annual Christmas draws near, it is well to remind ourselves that the grandest story of history is not so much about a baby as it is about God's plan to redeem His precious people.

Rightly understood, we will see today that the sacrifice of Jesus did not begin on the cross, it did not even begin with His birth. It began in heaven as an old poem has it:

"The One who is rich beyond imagination,

The One who is superior in power,

The One who is perfect in wisdom,

The One who is holiness itself.

He consented to lay His glory by and consented to come to earth.

He became a helpless baby, poor and defenseless

to win the friendship of sinners."

The birth of Jesus and the empty tomb together enclose and bracket the miracle of God's plan for salvation, which is His doing and not ours. His humiliation is an act that stands behind the purpose of the grace that prompted the incarnation itself, Jesus came to make us rich. Jesus came to save us.

Our second point today emphasizes the low condition of Christ's birth. Sadly, in our time, mankind is more likely to think too highly of the human condition. After all, a good positive self- image is being proclaimed by Robert Schuler and others as a New Reformation in the theological thinking of the Church. So we should see that a significant statement of our Confession is under assault from the new visionaries. Given this challenge what are we to make of Philippians 2: 7- 8a which the Westminster Divines quoted to assert the doctrine of Christ's humiliation before us today? Jesus Christ "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 ".

We see here that even the appearance of manliness was a matter of deep humility for the very Son of God. This caricature is not a Jonathan Livingston Seagull image as the worldly humanists would have us believe. No indeed, as Paul teaches, it was for the sake of our very salvation that the Christ became poor by putting on our flesh!

Our third point is that Christ was made under the law so that He could fulfill the law and thus provide us a way of salvation. In Galatians 4: 4-5, Paul writes: "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons." The stress here is upon the divine plan of redemption, the divine law which had been violated by the first Adam must be accounted for judicially. Only One born under the law could sacrifice His life in place of all those whose sins merited them damnation and death.

Our fourth point concerns the miseries of this life to which the Prince of Peace was subjected. Just as Isaiah foretold it, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." In the short three years of His earthly ministry, Jesus traveled far and wide through Palestine. Hardly a night was spent under roof. He and the disciples slept outside and depended upon the generosity of His followers for their daily bread. I have often wondered at what resources the Church growth experts would allocate for taking the gospel of Christ to a newly discovered planet? What a great mission opportunity that would be?

But, what would the Lord of heaven think of their budget, in light of the resources expended during His ministry among us? Would nightly stays in Motel 6 have been too rich for the disciples resources?

Our fifth and sixth points are also well understood by Isaiah: "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgression,s he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."

"The wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross" weighed heavily upon our Lord. Dr Watson tells us that "Christ took our flesh upon him, that he might take our sins upon him. He was, says Luther, the greatest sinner, having the weight of the sins of the whole world lying upon him. He took our flesh that he might take our sins, and so appease God's wrath."

Our final point in the humiliation of Christ is "in being buried and continuing under the power of death for a time." We began today with the Christmas story and we end with that of Easter. The Lord of heaven died on the cross under the weight of your sins and mine. And as the Apostle's Creed affirms carefully, He went to the place of the dead. There on that New Covenant cross, He spilled His blood and it was His body that was broken for our sakes. It was for this very purpose that He came to earth. It was the entire focus of God's eternal plan of salvation, envisioned even before time to rescue us from hell and damnation.

Now I ask you pointedly: how can mere human beings feel absolutely wonderful for a self- image-love and esteem that necessitates the death of the very Son of God? I am reminded of a war veteran who for the rest of his life remembered the man in trench next to him who fell on the grenade that would have killed the whole squad. One man died that several could live. He and the other survivors never ever stated that they deserved to live and were glad that their friend had bought the farm for them. No, veterans of war remember the fallen in different ways than that. Wonder of wonders to hear them tell it all, the question is always why not me? I know of another veteran who wasted away his whole life worrying about why he was the only one of his whole platoon that survived the wading into the beach at Tarawa.

If we were all such wonderful people, it would not have been necessary for the Son of God, to humble Himself by coming to earth, living a life of misery and having the whole sin of the world placed upon His shoulders. If we were all such wonderful people, it would not have been necessary for the very Son of God to die on the cross and go to the place of the dead. Dr Watson observes that "man should be made in God's image was a wonder, but that God should be made in man's image is a greater wonder. That the Ancient of Days should be born, that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle; that ... Christ taking flesh is a mystery we shall never fully understand till we come to heaven, where our light shall be clear, as well as our love perfect."