Amazing! - several of the of my favorite blogging friends (Love Wins - to name one) are pondering on a similar thought I find myself wondering about this Christmas season - how God emptied Himself and became a man. Not a super man but an ordinary man. Who began his life as we all do - as a helpless baby. The idea of God emptying himself really blows me away.
I'm not sure who wrote this poem but it really spoke to me. (I got it from Kingdom Grace and it looks like she got it from Kester Brewin's book).
THE GREAT REVERSAL
Walking with the crowds
Carried along by the pressing forward.
Each one eager to get ahead
But each one starting the same:
Born as a baby, and from then on, struggling towards
meaning, power and influence.
Be someone
Be remembered
Make a big impression
Leave some indelible mark in your 3 score years and 10
From birth, a struggle to find eternity, to burst
through life with such dazzling intensity, that
everyone will remember forever.
But walking the other way, picking out a route
against the crowds, a solitary figure passes me…
passes all of us - all straining away innocence, to be someone,
And he passes us, a quiet chaos in the crowd.
Christ, eternal, omniscient, creator, beyond time,
source of wisdom and beyond petty claims of influence…
in very nature God, slips into reverse
and walks back past us -
away from Kingship, away from power,
away from influence, away from eternity,
away from wisdom… towards infancy.
Calmly stepping into the body of a tiny child.
And even as this baby grows,
figuring out how to control the body he himself designed,
he still walks the other way,
realizing that life cannot be found in the struggle for permanence,
but in giving it up.
This Great Reversal subverts me.
Tired of pressing forward,
I realize I need to turn,
for what I have been searching for
has just walked past me the other way.
4 comments:
Dave,
Wow! I believe this thought of "emptying" (Kenosis) is very important during Advent, but also 24/7/365. It seems like there is a reversing going on - a shifting happening. A call to become less in order for more to burst forth.
Thank you for posting the poem.
Paul (Love Wins)
I love the imagery of the poem in 2 respects. 1: The helplessness of an infant. Being a mom of 3, it resonates...would we choose it? If we had a better place, would we choose this life? Christ chose this life to try and show us how to change it. Why are we not listening? 2: The idea that Jesus is walking past us. Walking toward the center....how many of us are walking the wrong way? To turn toward Him does not just mean directionally....it is so much more.
OK. My rambling is done.....
DAVE!!
I love the poem man, and it resonates with a lot of thoughts and realizations i have come to recently. I'm really glad you shared this.
One of the things I've been struggling with as of late is, is this possible in today's Western culture. I really fear that we've (our society) has setup a system where emptying yourself out like Christ, has become a nearly impossible feat. We live in a free-market consumer system that rewards individuality and discourages community. sigh
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