The Condescending God

Most of the time when we use the word "condescending" about someone, we think of it as a bad thing, especially here in America where we think of everyone as equal. Someone who is condescending is looking down on others as if they are better and the others need their help or want their attention. But there is a good sense of the word where someone in a position of authority like a King or the President stops and pays attention to someone in a lower station of life like their kitchen staff. In fact, most of us like to hear how a President condescends to spend a few minutes asking a staff member about their family. It shows us that they care enough about the little guy to spend some of their time and energy getting to know them. 

The incarnation is the ultimate condescension. God the Son steps down from eternal glory and enters the world so that we could commune with God. We could not on our own get to God, so God comes into the world to lift us us up to Him. We marvel at what Jesus did in coming as a baby. He condescends all the way to our level not because He needs it, but because we did and we still need it. In fact, we see throughout His earthly ministry that He recognized that His followers needed help in understanding who He was and what He was doing.

As I have been reading through the Gospel of John recently,  I've noticed a number of passages like this,

John 11:41-42 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Here Jesus prays a truth out loud not because He had any doubt about His relationship with the Father, but because His disciples needed to hear it. Further, it wad not just those disciples at the time that needed to here it, but all of the disciples throughout time that Jesus was trying to help.

Jesus entered our world and lived a perfect human life for the purpose of saving us through His death and resurrection, and his condescension goes all the way to the level of how He speaks to us. Like a good grade school teacher who gets on the level of her students, Jesus gets on our level, literally and figuratively, so that we can understand what He has done for us. Jesus in His perfection and glory is so far above us that in our limited state we could never get to Him, but His love is so great that He comes down to our level. He lives and speaks in such a way that we can see and understand the very nature of God. 

This Christmas season as you think of the baby in the manger, praise God for His condescension toward us because without His coming down we could never be raised up.