I must admit that doing this today is not on the top of my list. There is a bit of frustration as I don't feel like I'm getting any answers from Philip or his book. It's strange that I feel that way because when I started I wasn't necessarily looking for answers. Somewhere along the way I got some sort of expectation or should I say hope that maybe I had missed something in my understanding of God and that I would perhaps become enlightened along the way by reading this book. So far, no such revelation and I'm wondering why I'm even continuing? Don't get me wrong the book has been fine, but I think I've lost some of that unsolicited hope? Chapter 13 and I'm ready to throw in the towel? No... I'd have to deal with feeling like a quitter so I'll work through whatever this is that's got me distraught.
Chapter 13 tells the story of a king who was very powerful and he had fallen in love with a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her? His kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body with royal robes, she would surely not resist-no one would dare resist him. But would she love him? She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind. Would she be happy at his side? How could he know?
The king wanted a lover, an equal. "For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal," concluded the king. So the king convinced that he could not elevate the maiden without crushing her freedom, resolved to descend. He clothed himself as a beggar and approached her cottage. This was no disguise as he took on this new identity and renounced his throne to win her hand.
Paul describes this same story as he in his words about Jesus Christ.
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross.
In Gods dealings with man He has often humbled Himself. All through the Old Testament God came down to where man was. But after 400 years of silence He descended in the most unimaginable way. He took on a new form... He became a man. Now God could approach man in a way that would not scare them or as the king said, "crush their freedom."
Imagine for a moment what it must have felt like for the Son of God to become man. One moment the Son of God ruling and reigning in heaven and then becoming a helpless, dependent newborn. Think about becoming a newborn baby again. You would have to give up language and muscle coordination. You would not be able to eat solid food nor control you bladder. Humiliation , yet a kind of freedom as well. God could now act on a human scale. He could talk to anyone... a prostitute, a blind man, a widow, a leper and He could do so without first saying "fear not.
" John Donne said, "Twas much, that man was made like God before, But that God should be made like man, much more."
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