Stepping Down: The Attitude of Humility

The airport security checkpoint. You take your wallet, phone, keys, your big buckle belt, your boots, and your eyeglasses. You are emptying yourself. These things still belong to you. But you are parting with them so you can get to where you need to be.

“Emptied himself” or “made himself nothing” or “made himself of no reputation” translates the Greek verb kenoo, “to make empty” or “to make of no effect.” What does it mean? Step down.

Step Down From Your Moral High Horse:

It doesn’t suit you, that lofty place you claim. Everyone knows it doesn’t suit you, including you. So just step down from the seat of judgment that you hold on everything and everybody. This Christmas, empty yourself of all pretext that you are the judge. Make yourself of no reputation. Make yourself nothing.

Then when you see your children this Christmas, they will sense that you love them rather than are judging them. When your spouse wishes you good morning she will sense that she is accepted, not condemned.

Jesus was the judge of all the earth. He himself said that the Father had committed “All judgment to the Son.” So one day we will all stand before the judgement seat of Christ.

But not on Christmas Day. Christ Jesus came down for Christmas. He stepped down from the throne of the universe. He laid aside for a time his scepter, the symbol of judgment.

He showed himself to be the true friend of sinners. And in so doing he scandalized the crowd that judged everybody else. Those pretend judges in Jesus’ day wouldn’t and couldn’t keep the laws they laid down for others.

We all eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We believe that we are wise, become like God himself, knowing good and evil. Now we can pronounce judgments. It is the fundamental temptation of the broken human heart.

We all want to ride on that high horse of moral judgement. We want to pretend that we belong up there. We want sinners to tremble before our righteous indignation.

We know in our hearts that it’s not a fit. Our family knows that we are sinners, just like them. Nevertheless, we insist on looking down our noses at all the sinners below us. We judge ourselves better than them—more healthy, more righteous, more noble.

We Become Grinch When We Don the Robe:

Our attempts to be the moral arbiters, to always be right, to always sit in judgment, to always declare our edict as we simply express our opinions—these attempts, I say, make us the Grinch that steals Christmas. We steal Christmas at the family gathering when we sit in judgment on others. We steal Christmas at the gathering of friends where we prove once again that we have no moral self-awareness as we condemn others.

We steal Christmas as we climb on our high horse to render judgment on all the unworthy below us. We condemn that tax collector that Jesus would embrace. We despise that profane fisherman that Jesus befriended. And thus we steal Christmas from them. We condemn the adulterous woman, throwing her at the feet of Jesus as the Pharisees did, knowing we are right and true. We steal Christmas from her—and all who witness our actions.

We steal Christmas from that broken soul who weeps as she anoints the feet of Jesus. Along with Judas, we condemn her for wasting that valuable perfume. “It could have benefited the poor,” we huff and puff, as if we ever really worried about the poor.

We steal Christmas at the well where that sinful woman came. Jesus engaged her in conversation, but not us. She is the very kind of person we are trying to avoid in our life journey. Thus do we steal Christmas from her.

And thus do we steal Christmas from ourselves. We are so hard core, so self-deluded. We think we belong on that High Horse that is labeled “FAITHFUL AND TRUE.” And in our self-deception we disqualify ourselves from all the grace and mercy and forgiveness and amazing love that is on display that first Christmas Day. We actually steal Christmas right out of the manger, insisting that we are right and good and therefore have no need a Savior to rescue us out of moral bankruptcy.

The One who first came down for Christmas stepped down from the pinnacle of power and from the seat of moral arbitration in this universe. He was and is the Judge of all the earth. But he set that scepter beside the throne and became flesh.

• The scandal of Christmas is that God would become flesh. It seems morally impossible for the almighty to be clothed in weakness and corruption. Some insist on moral grounds that it cannot be true. The perfection of deity would never stoop to such a position of vulnerability and need.
• And I feel their discomfort with the idea of God’s Incarnation in Jesus. How could a perfect God endure such proximity to sinners? To be born into an imperfect family where jealousy and envy and anger and fear are UP close and personal. To be exposed to the foul language, the filthy jokes, and the faulty judgment of humans. It is incredible.
• The central truth of Christmas runs counter to our natural inclinations and our own moral judgments. Knowing ourselves, we suppose that perfection could never be clothed in flesh.
• We see Jesus of Nazareth in the manger, toddling around Bethlehem, fleeing as a preschooler with his family to become a refugee in Egypt. We see him in the Temple, discussing lofty ideas with the teachers. We imagine him a teenager going through those messy and difficult adjustments to life as he achieves adulthood.

And we cannot imagine that he remained morally perfect in that entire journey. We cannot conceive that a human being could walk through decades on this planet without committing a sin.

But we must remember this:

Christ Jesus Emptied Himself:

He who was morally perfect got up from the throne and laid aside his scepter to become the friend of sinners.

Christ Jesus was perfect in every way.

• Before he was born in Bethlehem, Jesus was the embodiment of moral purity: “being in very nature God.”
• After he ascended to the Father, he sat down again upon the throne of moral purity. He will come again riding the white horse as the One who is faithful and true.
• During his earthly sojourn with Mary and Joseph and those Twelve young men, he remained morally pure. He knew perfectly what was right and wrong in every moment of every day.

Yet he would not sit in judgment. He refused to do it.

• He was asked to decide a case between brothers, and he refused. “Who made me a judge over you?” (Luke 12:14).
• Then he identified the motive for the question buried in the brother’s heart. He was greedy. Jesus told the story that haunts us all, about the rich man whose harvest was so great that he had to have bigger barns. And God said, “You fool, this night your soul will be required of you.” And Jesus concludes, “This is how it will be for those who stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21).
• Empty yourself. Come down for Christmas. For heaven’s sake, come down. You scoff at the circus in Washington, the pretense of outrage, the scramble to claim the moral high ground. Maybe you are in that scramble even though you know we are all sinners in need of a Savior. The truly penitent do not condemn others. They do not confess the sins of others as they acknowledge their own. They do not try to sit in judgment. They do not even look toward heaven. They drop their heads and say, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”
• It is the story of us from our very beginnings. We who are fully undone by sin cannot and will not admit our condition. Instead we suppose that we are righteous—at least more righteous than others. We assume that God crushes sinners, and so we crush them ourselves.
• Christmas is the message from on high that God loves sinners. Christmas is God’s effort to unseat us from our high horse and help us see our need for mercy and forgiveness. It is his message to us: “I know you are a sinner, but I love you anyway.”

Luke 2:8-12: And there were in the same country…

Come down this Christmas. You are not and cannot be perfect. You cannot make yourself acceptable to God no matter how hard you try. The Innocent One has died for we who are guilty. This is the way. Walk in it.

“God demonstrated his love for us in this way” — Romans 5:8.

How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” — Isaiah 30:19,21.