Have you ever paused to think about the one word in our vocabulary that describes what happened when God the Son left heaven for earth? The scenes in the Bible unfold this for us, shouting it loudly if we are paying attention.
God the Father chose an obscure Jewish peasant teenager’s womb to be the place where God the Son would be conceived by the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:26-38) God the Son went from the Heavenly place’s wonder to a human person’s womb.
God the Son was born in a smelly small animal barn. In those days, people’s animals were typically kept underneath the house where the residents lived above. This type of place where Jesus was born would have been filled with the smell of animals, manure, straw, and more. The trough, which we call a manger today, was a wooden hand-made feed box with fodder for the animals to eat daily. It was probably dirty. Mary and Joseph put straw in it to make a bed for Immanuel, God with us. (Luke 2:4-7) God the Son went from the awe of The Throne to the awful of the trough.
Heaven did not announce the birth of God the Son to the kings of the earth, but an angel told this marvelous news to shepherds in lonely fields. Shepherds in those days were considered outsiders in society. A heavenly host, possibly thousands of angels, praised God with joy to these bewildered shepherds. “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Verse 14 of Luke 2:8-20) In this Bible passage, the Shepherds were the first to be told by the angel that God the Son would be the Savior and Messiah. These Jewish shepherds went to Bethlehem and glorified God after they beheld Him. God the Son went from the worship of lovely angels to the wonder of lowly shepherds.
Gentile magicians (Magi), most likely from Persia (modern-day Iran), were stargazers. In fact, they were astrologers, possibly even pagan Zoroastrianian priests, believing that the stars gave them messages from gods. Yet, in God’s grand plan, He used the stars to convince these gentile magicians, that a king of the Jews had been born in Bethlehem. So they traveled to find Him.
These gentile magicians had wealth, as evidenced by the gold, frankincense, and myrrh they brought with which they would worship the Messiah-child. (Matthew 2:1-12) God the Son came not only for the chosen Jewish people but also for the children of the Gentiles as well. (Gentiles were called “dogs” by the Jews in the time of Jesus and beyond.)
What, then, is the one word that describes Jesus and how God the Father sent him from heaven to earth? HUMBLE. Everything about Jesus’s entrance on planet earth as a human tells us He came through a humble teenage girl in a humble stable, announced to humble Jewish shepherds, and worshipped by humble gentile magicians.
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity, took on the status of a slave, and became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. (Philippians 2:5-8 The Message)
© Mark Maulding (But feel free to share this.)
