Tag Archives: salvation

In the humility of his humanity

28 Thursday Apr 2022

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The early Church wrestled with the Christological controversies like their lives depended on it.  The truth is that our lives (and salvation) do.  Unless Jesus is fully God, we are not saved.  Unless Jesus is fully human, we are not saved.  The chasm created by our turning away from God (because it is God we have turned from) is impossible for any creature (human or angelic) to bridge.  Only God can heal that divide.  Hence, the savior must be fully God.  The original offense – the turning away – is on our part.  We are the ones who turned our back on God.  We must be the one who makes amends.  Hence, the savior must be fully human.  The savior must overcome our prideful disobedience by his humble obedience to the Father.  Jesus – fully God and fully human – did this.   

For centuries the Church (guided by the Holy Spirit) wrestled this out and from this effort and inspiration was born the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds – guardrails to keep us on the way of truth.  But guardrails are not the road nor are they meant to be.  Guardrails serve their purpose by keeping the traveler on the right path and protecting the traveler from the misfortunes and the dangers of going off course.  This is their purpose and the creeds do this but they do not answer every single question nor are they meant to.  There is still so much more to learn and to be brought to deeper understanding on.   

Being fully God and fully human, how does the savior overcome our disobedience by his obedience?  Both in the emptying of his divine sonship and in the humility of his humanity, I believe. 

Here, the Christ Hymn of Philippians 2 (a hymn sung by the first generation of disciples) is of critical importance.

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,

Who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness,

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death,

even death on a cross. 

Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

of those in heaven and on earth

and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.  (Phil. 2:5-11, NAB)

The glory of the divine Sonship is present in Jesus but it is an emptying presence.  It is freely let go of.  This letting go allows Jesus, in the humility of his humanity, the “space” to fully exercise his will in obedient response to the prompting and guidance of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit – who is the love of the Father and the Son – fully indwells within Jesus who is without sin.  And Jesus (without sin) in the humility of his humanity continually and fully makes the choice to respond to the prompting and guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

In this the salvation won by Christ is an exercise of his divine Sonship in the sense of continually emptying himself of the glory of God in order that in the humility of his humanity Jesus might authentically exercise that human obedience in which we failed. 

To be fully human means to grow in understanding and therefore not always fully know and comprehend, to authentically exercise trust and faith even in the darkest and most despairing moments, to be guided by the Holy Spirit through one’s own prayer, scripture, worship and the Spirit speaking through other persons and circumstances.  Jesus did all of this even to death on a cross. 

The miracles of Jesus (the signs) can be understood then not as the exercise of the power of his divine Sonship in the worldly sense of “will to power” but rather the exact opposite – an emptying of his equality with God in order that in the obedience of his sinless humanity the Holy Spirit might fully work through him and now, through Christ, even in others.  In the Last Supper discourse, before the promise of the sending of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these because I am going to the Father. (Jn. 14:12) 

It is only in Jesus’ ascending to the Father, that the Holy Spirit (who had been fully indwelling in the Son) can now be poured forth upon and begin to dwell within us who have been washed clean through the obedience of Christ.  Now the Holy Spirit can begin to work through us if we take on the same attitude that was in Christ Jesus.  If we learn (through grace) willed self-emptying, then the Holy Spirit can move through even the humility of our own humanity and we can learn to hear and be docile (obedient) to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our lives.      

In the self-emptying of his equality with God and in the humility of his humanity Jesus exercises the obedience that overcomes the effects of our original disobedience. 

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus.

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: “Christ crucified” (3rd Sunday of Lent – B)

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Christ, cross, Jesus, salvation

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Jesus-Christ-from-Hagia-SophiaIt has been said that when it comes to Jesus there are basically only three options to choose from: either Jesus is a madman, a lunatic (How many people throughout the centuries, struggling with sanity, have concluded that they must be God?), either he is a liar and therefore one of the most evil people of all history, someone willing to deceive generations into the belief that he is God or lastly, he actually is who he says he is.  These are the options we have to choose from and if we are to be authentic in life then at some point we must each make a choice.

For Christians it all comes down to this one person who lived nearly two thousand years ago, who was poor, who never travelled in his adult life beyond his immediate area, who did not seem to have any formal education, who preached the good news of a God of love and humility and who was put to death by the powers that be.  If you are looking for an ascetic or a yogi to follow, then do not look to Jesus, he was neither.  If you are searching for a great philosopher or guru then do not look to Jesus.  If you are looking to a man of success in order to feel validated and bask in the glow of, then do not look to Jesus.  Jesus is none of these things.  He is something totally different all together.  Jesus cannot and will not be captured and contained by any of our definitions and biases.  Jesus can only be encountered.  It is because of this truth that Paul is able to write, “…Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified…” (1 Cor. 1:22).  “Christ crucified” – these two words held together break every human presumption about God and how he operates, about what it means to be human, about life itself.  For Christians it all comes down to a person – to Christ crucified.

In his book, “The Lord” Romano Guardini writes:

God did not reveal himself merely by teaching a truth, giving us commands to which he attaches consequences, but by coming to us, personally.  His truth is himself.  And to him who hears, he gives his own strength, again himself.  To hear God means to accept him.  To believe means to accept him in truth and loyalty.  The God we believe in is the God who “comes” into heart and spirit, surrendering himself to us. 

The “temple” Jesus will raise up is not a building, not a compilation of religious laws and precepts, not a system of political or philosophical thought, not an idea of a better world.  The “temple” that will be raised up is Jesus himself, “Christ crucified.”

We cannot constrain Jesus, neither can we explain him away nor fit him into a nice, neat, little category.  All we can do is encounter Jesus – the one who once was dead but who now lives – and in this is found life.