This Christmas I am marvelling at Jesus’ humility and wanting more of it myself. My favourite Christmas text puts humility at the heart of Christmas:
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 2:6-8).
Those are some of my favourite verses on humility. But there is a problem for us; Jesus wasn’t humble for the same reasons we are (or should be). How then can looking at Jesus’ Christmas humility help us? Our humility, if there is any at all, is based on our finiteness, our fallibility, and our sinfulness. But the eternal Son of God was not finite, he was not fallible, and he was not sinful. Unlike our humility, Jesus’ humility originated some other way.
What defines Jesus’ humility is the fact that it is mainly a conscious act of putting himself in a lowly, servant role for the good to others. His humility is defined by phrases like, made himself nothing...taking the very nature of a servant...he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Jesus’ humility was not a heart disposition of being finite or fallible or sinful. It was a heart of infinite perfection and infallible truthfulness and freedom from all sin, which for that very reason did not need to be served. He was free and full to overflow in serving.
Another Christmas text that says this would be Mark 10:45: 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. Jesus’ humility was not a sense of defect in himself, but a sense of fullness in himself put at the disposal of others for their good. It was a voluntary lowering of himself to make the height of his glory available for sinners to enjoy.
Jesus makes the connection between his Christmas lowliness and the good news for us: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30).
His lowliness makes our relief from burdens possible. If he were not lowly, he would not have been obedient to death—even death on a cross. And if he had not been obedient to die for us, we would be crushed under the weight of our sins. He lowers himself to take our condemnation (Romans 8:3).
Now we have more reason to be humble than before. We are finite, fallible, sinful, and therefore have no ground for boasting at all. Now in Jesus we see other humbling things: our salvation is not owing to our work, but his grace, so boasting is excluded (Ephesians 2:8-9). The way he accomplished that gracious salvation was through voluntary, conscious self-lowering in servant-like obedience to the point of death.
In addition to finiteness, fallibility, and sinfulness, we now have two other huge impulses at work to humble us: free and undeserved grace underneath all our blessings, and a model of self-denying, sacrificial, servanthood that willingly takes the form of a servant.
We are called to join Jesus in this conscious self-humbling and servanthood - Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”(1 Peter 5:5).
This is my Christmas prayer for myself and for St Paul’s.
A humble and merry Christmas to you all.
Steve Jeffrey, Senior Minister
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