The Humility of God

This passage about how Jesus stilled the storm on Galilee has caused me to ponder His humility: The breath-taking humility of God. At Christmas we celebrate a small baby who was born to a girl, who was a nobody, a girl caught up in the plans of the Romans to take a census of their captive population. Late in pregnancy she is required to get herself to Bethlehem. Just the journey no woman should do in the final stages of pregnancy. And of course, labour starts, and her baby is born. It’s like giving birth in somebody’s garage, because there’s no room and the house is already full of guests.

A few months, maybe a year later, after the shepherds and the wise men have come and gone, Jesus and His parents flee to Egypt to save his life from Herod’s plan to slaughter every baby boy under two years. This family becomes just another refugee family slipping over the border, defenceless, displaced, unprepared, dependent on the kindness of any individuals who will show pity and give them help.

This is God, deliberately choosing to become man! This is God. In all His life Jesus does no miracle to escape hardship. The disciples have seen Him healing miraculously. But now the disciples are terrified in the storm that sweeps over Galilee. They are fast losing control of the boat with waves pouring over the sides. They wake Jesus up and shake Him in their terror. And Jesus takes control. He simply speaks the word, and the wind drops, the lake becomes still, the danger is gone.

The disciples are shaken to the core. They have now seen for themselves that Jesus has an authority and power beyond anything they have ever imagined: He has authority over the wind and the waves.

And they also know that they have never ever once seen Jesus use that authority to make life easy for Himself. What a temptation that would have been! He could have done it. But He daily chose not to.

Every moment of every day, Jesus chose to get on with life under whatever circumstances He was in, just like everyone else. He exercised no magic wand miraculously to evade poverty. He comes to show God to His people. He shows us love, self-sacrificing, preferring of others. He shows us humility of living and giving to others. He shows us God’s love and His mercy. God’s Father heart for His people.