DESCENT OF A GOD

 

“Years ago my wife and I travelled to the Holy Land. As we ascended Shepherd’s Field, we overlooked the quaint little town of Bethlehem. It was as though time stood still. We tried to imagine the scene two thousand years earlier with no paved roads, no running water, no electricity, no shopping malls.

“Life was reduced to its simplest terms: rude shelters to protect one from the elements, a central well from which to draw water, transportation by foot or donkey or horse. The days were spent plowing the field, tending the sheep, or selling a few simple items of merchandise. It was hard to believe we were viewing the place where a God was born.

“He, “the King of heaven”….left a throne to inherit a manger. He exchanged the dominion of a god for the dependence of a babe. He gave up wealth, power, dominion, and the fulness of His glory – for what? – for taunting, mocking, humiliation, and subjection.

“It was a trade of unparalleled dimension, a condescension of incredible proportions, a descent of incalculable depth. And so, the great Jehovah, creator of worlds without number, infinite in virtue and power, made his entry into this world in swaddling clothes and a manger.”

-        Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement, p 69

I cannot read something like this without the stark realization of one of Christ’s greatest virtues – humility.  Consider for a moment the eons of time He would have spent in exact obedience to His Father’s laws, the instruction He would have received and the knowledge He would have obtained to rise to His godly status.

The development of the Saviour’s impeccable character would have earned Him amazing respect and adoration from us all, His younger siblings. No doubt we looked up to Him for example and guidance. Imagine all that not producing an iota of pride.

Only innate goodness could produce the humility that He possessed. Only such humility could lower itself into the manger of a stable. The humility of a God who knew His purpose: “To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).

 

No soft pillows and kingly bed

On which to lay His princely head.

A bleak future on some hill

Lay in shadows of His Father’s will.

 

For man’s purpose did He come

To dispel the gloom from

The devil’s hellish flood.

To light the world with heaven’s glow,

The greatest love you’ll ever know.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Greatest Gift by Liz Lemon Swindle)