12/20/2022
We live in a culture obsessed with power. Power politics. People power. NCAA power rankings. A six-season TV series simply called “Power.” We even have Powerball.
Power captivates, dominates and controls. We want enough of it to be respected, but not so much to come across as “power hungry.” Parents use it. Pastors use it. Bosses use it. I use it. When my daughter asks, “Why do I have to do the dishes?” I answer, “Because I’m the dad, and I said so.” Power parenting at its finest.
To exercise power over someone usually has more to do with what’s wrong inside of the giver than the receiver. Bullies operate out of their own insecurity. They talk louder and act meaner, because they’re trying to prove their power to themselves as much as to anyone else. The modus operandi of those manifesting power is, “I can do this to you, and therefore it proves I have power,” not, “I can do this to you, because I have power.” The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The only way I can prove I have power is by showing you I have power.
Compare that to the heart of Christianity revealed in the Christmas story. The central message of Christmas is a power reversal. “`Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us)…. [He] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Matthew 1:23; Philippians 2:7).
God taking on human flesh was not a power trip but a vulnerable trip. In fact, it was in God’s vulnerability that His true power was revealed. Oswald Chambers wrote, “The essential nature of Deity is holiness, and the power of God is proved in His becoming a Baby. That is the staggering proposition the Bible gives—God became the weakest thing we know” (Facing Reality, 26).
Jesus is God Incarnate, not man becoming God but God becoming man. The One who is the first and the last, the living One who died and is alive forevermore, the One who holds the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:17-18) entered our world through the lowliest door. He entered human history by the Virgin Mary.
When we think we must hold positions of power in order to have influence, remember the Incarnation. When we believe we are superior because we have power over those who are on lower rungs of the societal ladder, remember the Incarnation.
The very One who rightfully could “lord it over” others, testified that He came not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Let us beware of posing as the profound, privileged, or powerful, for God became a Baby.
God flew under the radar of the most powerful empire the world had ever known. He showed up in a manger under the powerful King Herod. No one expected a King of Humility but a King of Power. “He became the weakest thing in His own creation” (Chambers, The Shadow of an Agony, 1162) and leveraged His humanity to bring us back to where we were supposed to be. He righted the wrong. He repaired the breach. He restored our humanity to right relationship with His divinity.
The Cappadocian Father, Gregory Nazianzen, once wrote, “What has not been assumed has not been healed.” Thus, God assumed—took on—human flesh to heal the divide of sin and reconcile us to our heavenly Father. Let us rejoice that God “has visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us” (Luke 1:68-69)!
So the next time you feel the need to be a person, parent (or pastor) of power, remember the lowly manger … and remember the humble cross.
