Blush
It almost goes without saying that extravagant gifts can both humble and embarass us. I'll never forget the Christmas my wife and I moved back from California after being away from home for some two and half years. Surronded by family, friends and strangers alike, I was humbled by the shere number of presents that we received. The pile rose higher and higher and still the gifts kept coming. I looked at the strangers around us and blushed with embarassement how much had been given. It was difficult to accept the overwhelming extravangance of these gifts given in love.
Jesus washing of his disciple’s feet in John 13 is really about the extravangant gift given in the incarnation – its a powerful symbolic reenactment of the word made flesh. Much of the scene echoes Philippians 2:4-8. When Jesus lays aside his garments and takes a towel he shows how he laid aside his deity to take the demaning role of a personal slave.
Peter's rejection reveals the scandelous, sometimes embarassing reality of what God has done. I think in our present society we have lost the shock and the horror that Peter experienced as His Lord exposed himself to perform the slave’s task. I believe it would parallel in some sense the shock of watching Robert Schuller take off his clothes in the middle of his sermon in order to give his clothes personally to you. Imagine your horror as this dignified man takes off his robe unbuttons his shirt and then unzips his pants. Imagine the gasps from the crowd; the red faces the eyes closing and the heads turning away. Imagine the pale skin, aged and overweight body of Robert Schuller standing exposed, offering all his honor and dignity to you. This is what God did in Jesus. We might have been satisfied with a single piece of his clothing but we recieved so much more.
God is closer than you think and perhaps at times, according to the reaction of Peter, even more intimate than you could desire. For the Jews God was something up there, something wholly other. He was a transcendent being, that no eye could see and no mind could comprehend. God existed far removed from the day to day routine of everyday life. The incarnation, the fact that God became man, changed everything. It turned the world upside down. God could no longer be mistaken for an invisible deity far removed from our cares and concerns. He was as Matthew pointed out, Immanuel which is translated “God with us.”
In Christmas we remember how God fully and completely offered himself to us, giving up the entirety of his honor and respect in order to meet every last inch of our need. This gift of nearness may be difficult to accept. The cynic in us can’t believe it. No God would do that. If I was God I wouldn’t do that. But the surprising thing is that it is exactly because he is God that he has done it for us. Notice how John tells us that the cause for Jesus actions was that he knew he came from God and was going back to God. It is precisely because of his being God, a member of the trinity, that He gave himself to us. To be God, according to the gospel of John, is to give sacrafically. For God is a giver (John 3:16). He goes beyound the limits of what even we would do to meet our every need.
In John 13 we find a God that is truly closer than we think. A God that shocks us so throughly in the extravagant gift of himself that we can only help but blush.
Jesus washing of his disciple’s feet in John 13 is really about the extravangant gift given in the incarnation – its a powerful symbolic reenactment of the word made flesh. Much of the scene echoes Philippians 2:4-8. When Jesus lays aside his garments and takes a towel he shows how he laid aside his deity to take the demaning role of a personal slave.
Peter's rejection reveals the scandelous, sometimes embarassing reality of what God has done. I think in our present society we have lost the shock and the horror that Peter experienced as His Lord exposed himself to perform the slave’s task. I believe it would parallel in some sense the shock of watching Robert Schuller take off his clothes in the middle of his sermon in order to give his clothes personally to you. Imagine your horror as this dignified man takes off his robe unbuttons his shirt and then unzips his pants. Imagine the gasps from the crowd; the red faces the eyes closing and the heads turning away. Imagine the pale skin, aged and overweight body of Robert Schuller standing exposed, offering all his honor and dignity to you. This is what God did in Jesus. We might have been satisfied with a single piece of his clothing but we recieved so much more.
God is closer than you think and perhaps at times, according to the reaction of Peter, even more intimate than you could desire. For the Jews God was something up there, something wholly other. He was a transcendent being, that no eye could see and no mind could comprehend. God existed far removed from the day to day routine of everyday life. The incarnation, the fact that God became man, changed everything. It turned the world upside down. God could no longer be mistaken for an invisible deity far removed from our cares and concerns. He was as Matthew pointed out, Immanuel which is translated “God with us.”
In Christmas we remember how God fully and completely offered himself to us, giving up the entirety of his honor and respect in order to meet every last inch of our need. This gift of nearness may be difficult to accept. The cynic in us can’t believe it. No God would do that. If I was God I wouldn’t do that. But the surprising thing is that it is exactly because he is God that he has done it for us. Notice how John tells us that the cause for Jesus actions was that he knew he came from God and was going back to God. It is precisely because of his being God, a member of the trinity, that He gave himself to us. To be God, according to the gospel of John, is to give sacrafically. For God is a giver (John 3:16). He goes beyound the limits of what even we would do to meet our every need.
In John 13 we find a God that is truly closer than we think. A God that shocks us so throughly in the extravagant gift of himself that we can only help but blush.
posted by Matthew Miller at 8:46 AM
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