What does it mean to have humility? We are children of the King of kings and Lord
of lords, but we are thus not because of greatness on our part but on account
of the sacrificial death of the true Son, Jesus. Humility has to do with an attitude towards
all things that is radical amazement that we are able to do or accomplish
anything because we know how limited and finite we truly are. It means to serve one another, not seeking to
rule over anyone, not seeing ourselves as superior to others. It means to have the mind of Christ of
service and love. It means glorifying
Him who created and redeemed us in all that we do or say. It is the attitude that led Christian
composers like Bach and Handel to write the letters SDG, Soli Deo Gloria, to
the glory of God alone, on their compositions in recognition that all they did
or were able to do was because of Him. Humility
is encapsulated in the final words of one of the most accomplished men who ever
lived, Leonardo da Vinci, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did
not reach the quality it should have.”
There is something wrong when Jesus and Peter, James and
John come down from the mountain. A crowd
is gathered round the disciples and a man there cries out to Jesus to heal his
son. The man says that he has asked the
disciples to heal him and they cannot. The
remainder of the passage and the parallel passages in Matthew and Mark give us
the answer to the problem. The disciples
were struggling because they were too enamored of themselves and failed to
recognize that there was no greatness in them inherently. They heard that Jesus was going to die but
their reaction was to try and sort out who was the greatest. Compared to Jesus there is no greatness at
all, it is a meaningless discussion but they seem to have forgotten that
reality. They must be humbled if they
are to be of use. They, like we, must
come to the end of self-regard, come to a place where we recognize that without
Him there is no health in us.
Paul called first the leaders of the Jews to make his defense
against what he presumed they had heard from their fellows about him. The leaders state they have heard nothing
from afar about Paul but they want to hear about his "sect",
Christianity, because they hear that it was spoken against everywhere. Paul shares the Gospel with them and, as
always, some believe, others don't. Paul
pronounces on them what he always did, that because of their stubbornness they
have rejected God's offer of a new covenant and that the Gentiles were brought into
that covenant. Paul never took things
personally, it wasn't about him. He may
have been an apostle but he never forgot that lesson in humility that he had
completely missed the Messiah and that without grace he was nothing at all.
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