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The God who burned His bridges
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IT MUST have been a momentous event
in heaven. All heaven must have held its holy breath as it witnessed
a most astounding event. The Treasure of heaven, the Son of God,
was beginning to set aside His shining glory, preparing Himself
for an unprecedented trip to rebellious Earth.
Why would He want to do this? Should not the Triune God let the
earthlings self-destruct themselves? It would not take too long
for them to do that! Why bother with a bunch of ungrateful and
rebellious creatures, living in a tiny and insignificant part
of the great cosmos? But there was something that was making Jesus
make that trip.
The motive in Jesus for wanting to make the
trip can be understood by remembering one story he told after
He had arrived on earth.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around
it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented
the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When
the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants
to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat
one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants
to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them
the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. "They
will respect my son" he said." (Mt. 21:33-37).
What made Jesus make that trip was obedience to His Father in
heaven. He was sent by the Father to a world that was trapped
in a sinful pattern of idolatry and rebellion. The divine plan
was to unfold in the earthly life of His Son, a plan that Father
and Son must have discussed together with the Holy Spirit as a
conversation within the Trinity.
Jesus made it clear that He understood why He came to earth. "As
the Father has sent me…" (Jn. 20:21) He declared, demonstrating
a clear idea of who had sent Him. On another occasion, He said,
"My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish
his work" (Jn. 4:34), again showing a clarity of mission
and passion.
There was another reason why Jesus came to earth. He described
Himself as the Good Shepherd who "lays down his life for
His sheep". (Jn. 10:11). He knew that His mission was to
save the human race from its sins by dying on the cross as an
atonement for sins. It was through this painful sacrificial act
that the world was to be saved and given eternal life. No wonder
He said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it
to the full." (Jn. 10:10). Jesus came not only because of
obedience to the Father but also because of His profound love
for human beings and His creation.
The above story of the ungrateful tenants ends tragically. The
landowner's son was mercilessly killed by the mutinous tenants.
Jesus knew what was going to happen to Him, but He also knew that
through His death on the cross, the rebellious human race would
be saved. And so He came. He made the trip to earth, both as an
act of obedience to the Father and also as an act of love for
the desperately lost and dying human race. His obedience sprang
from love - love for the Father and love for us.
When Jesus set aside His Kingly and divine powers and possessions
in heaven, He was not merely performing a nice symbolic and sentimental
act. It was for real. Paul, perhaps borrowing a liturgical phrase
used in the early church, said that Jesus "made Himself nothing,"
even though He was "in very nature God" (Phil 2:6-7).
Jesus voluntarily set aside all that was available to Him as the
divine Son of God so that He could truly become a man, a servant,
with all its inherent limitations.
Jesus was used to life in heaven. He was the very source of the
glory and joy in heaven. He was adored by heaven's inhabitants;
there was not a single moment when He was not worshipped. He was
loved perfectly and one could say with hushed reverence, the "delight
of heaven". Such was His glory and honour. No one could or
would say or do anything to dishonour or hurt Him. Heaven was
a perfect home for Jesus.
And yet He left heaven to come to earth. Earth
was a totally different place. It was a human wasteland of sin,
idolatry and "to-your-face" rebellion. It was a place
where evil was called good, and might was right, where sword was
lord. The poor and the powerless dwelt in dark despair, victims
rotting in the dark underbelly of a foolish and brutish world.
The hearts of the rich and powerful were filled with wickedness
and disregard for God and His law. Even the religious people were
far from God as they worshipped their own creations of divinity
- often resembling their own pathetic selves. In such a world,
righteousness would feel like a stranger; holiness would be an
uninvited alien. God would be unwelcome; the world would be an
inhospitable place for God who wanted to visit it.
And yet Jesus came. He came almost unrecognised, without the trappings
of human power and wealth - the very things that the spiritually
blind earthlings worshipped. He came in poverty, exposed to all
the uncertainties, injustices and indignities that persons, whose
poverty and marginalised lives He came to share, would suffer
in a world plunged in darkness. Jesus knew that in leaving heaven
for earth, He was giving up heavenly glory for human mess, joy
for sorrow, unceasing adoration for inhuman torture, and the crown
for the cross. And yet He came.
And He came to stay. There was no plan for Him to travel back
and forth between heaven and earth. It was not going to be like
a mission trip for Him, where He would endure the deprivation,
poverty and tragic mess for a few days or weeks, and then return
to the homely comforts and delights of heaven, until the next
trip. Nothing like that at all. When Jesus came, it was for a
lifetime. It was only after He completed His mission, after more
than 33 years of life on earth, that He returned to heaven. It
was a long, uninterrupted life-long mission.
The only contact that Jesus had on earth with heaven was His frequent
conversations with His Father and the presence of the Holy Spirit
in His ministry. At the cross, even that was taken away from Him.
He could have returned to heaven at the most painful part of His
mission. But He endured saying to the Father, "Yet not as
I will but as you will." (Mt. 26:39). He made Himself nothing
for our sake. And He did not go home until His redemptive mission
was completed.
All this He did because He obeyed His Father who had sent Him,
and because He loves us. When Jesus was born on this earth as
a helpless tiny baby, He came as the God who burned all His bridges.
He came to stay. The Word became flesh. Heaven must have held
its breath with spell-binding awe, beholding this mystery and
depth of love. We too must do the same.
An Israeli tank patrolling
the southern border of Jerusalem overlooking
the village of Beit Jala near Bethlehem. -- CNI file picture.
QUOTE:
Jesus came to earth not only because of obedience to
the Father but also because of His profound love for human beings
and His creation.
QUOTE:
NO TRAPPINGS OF HUMAN POWER AND WEALTH
Jesus came almost unrecognised, without the trappings of human
power and wealth - the very things that the spiritually blind
earthlings
worshipped … He knew that in leaving heaven for earth, He
was
giving up heavenly glory for human mess, joy for sorrow, unceasing
adoration for inhuman torture, and the crown for the cross. And
yet He came.