JAC Online

The Humility of Christ
by Cadet Ashley Aspeitia

I sat there, nervous and trembling.

I was about to tell a few teens what it was to be a part if the disenfranchised. Why God would use the poor and humble…  It really hadn’t been intended but I turned out to be a perfect example.  I had been struggling with depression and severe anxiety for years (to say the least). The depression was kicked, but there was no way I should have been the one speaking to teens.

But there was.  I learned something that I will never forget – God uses the broken.

I heard a phrase in War College. There was this girl who would refer to all of us as “wounded healers.” A bit like the phrase I had heard of in speaking of Christ – THE wounded Healer. I thought about it, and it only scratches the surface of what I want to convey to you.

So, let’s just give it a go…  Here’s what drove home the RADICAL POWER of Christ’s humility: the Church and the State: of my soul.

I have lived in the USA, Canada, and New Zealand. Each has taught me something about nation-states and the people that occupy them. One thing is that practically everyone has good intentions and when it comes to politics practically everyone thinks the other person has tripped a switch in the brain to think contrary to their own thoughts. Then, when I was attending the War College, God  introduced me to another way – not purely right or left, just living for His Kingdom, whatever that took.

Here is what gets me, the eerie silence in the midst of the noisy cities and countries I’ve lived in: poverty. It’s the crisis I see now and that catalyzes everything else I am and do. Oh, we could probably still feign ignorance of our sorry state, if it were not for this!  It flies in our face. Just a smidge under 50% of our fellow human beings live on less than $2.50 a day.[1]  Something is terribly, terribly wrong. And that something only begins to speak to the state of our churches, governments and souls.

And I sit here fearful and trembling.  “It’s not just!” I cry when I see my sisters and brothers on hard streets. Whether addicted or abandoned, adults or still children. Babies’ bellies are empty and photographers are photographing and reporters reporting and we’re eating ourselves to death. My country is at war, the kids think it’s funny. Mommies’ bellies are stripped, and left bare. And I think “Dear God, when will You make things right?” When will all the violence stop? And my justice screams turn into whimpers.[2]

As usual, our Bible has answers to our society – past and present. So, let’s look.

If you go to Mark and read it as a whole, you’ll notice it packs a bit of a unique punch. It’s shorter than all the other gospels. Most historians agree that is was the first of its genre in retelling of the story of Christ. It begins abruptly with the statement that Jesus is Lord and it ends abruptly with the telling of His disciples’ failure to understand. They were left in IMMENSE fear! Everything in between is everyone else just not getting it. Mark hones in on the sufferings of Christ, on His persecution, on His misunderstood nature. Mark points out who the Kingdom of God is for – those who get Christ… and who gets Christ? No one. The poor are his friends, but they don’t get Him much more than the next person. No one “get’s Him” until He is naked, beaten to flesh, and hanging on a tree and breathes His last in such a way that the Centurion over Him looks up and says “surely this man was the Son of God.” [3]

What is interesting to me in each of these instances is God’s revelation of Himself in the broken and finally of the POWER of His revelation in His own brokenness. His revelation isn’t just something that is like “wow, that’s pretty neat.” It is something that leaves even His very closest awestruck and dumbfounded! Think dreadful awe!

That is the humility of Christ.

As a matter of fact, it is the answer to church and state. A soul.  A lone soul on a lonely tree. Me. Me looking up at the lone soul on the lonely tree and getting it, “Surely, this man was the Son of God.”

That is why I have to go back onto the street even when I don’t feel like it.  Even when I know I’m the biggest joke and failure there is on this earth.  Why I don’t drink certain things, or eat certain things. Not because I can do anything, but because I’m weak.

Don’t doubt it. God is changing the world. The rich will be called to account, as will the poor. And look, it has begun!

The humility of Christ’s final sigh has got me in dreadful awe. That means that I will follow no other King because none of them have got it down, but when I look up at the way He took His final breath and as my society and friends and family heave out their last existence, I know I can only follow Him.

The cross makes forgiveness of sin possible, but what does that mean?!

Nothing less than COMPLETELY restoring the world to God, through Christ. Righting what went wrong in our rebellion and rebellions! And as I watch another day heave a sigh and in faith I wait through the night, the morning explodes again. There is power in the blood; in the broken body of God.

There is power in humility that is struck on the other cheek but THEN WINS!

The humility of Christ is not His weak point, it is His strength.

This is the power of Christ to make all things new. To give hope to my generation, my nation, the nations, all creation. It is marvelous in our eyes!

All that to say: let us think about the humility of Christ. The fire in His eyes at His accusers words, the final sigh of the firstborn over all creation. It’s a whisper. This is the underground uprising. Could we be like Him? Is this really the power of Christ? To draw your sword and die?

Is this how the world begins? Not with a bang but a whimper?[4]