He Could Have Wowed Us

            He could have come down in a fantastic display of the divine meeting the mundane, with lightning and trumpets and a host of angels. Or, if he insisted on passing off as one of us, he could still have come as the “best in show,” the most exemplary human model, with beautiful face and dazzling charisma. He could have started in a palatial hall, in position to see and be seen, in a place of power where his status would command the respect of all.

            He could have wowed us, you know?

            He had the right. He would have deserved whatever he chose to take. And he could have won our attention through sheer majesty, beauty, spectacularity.

            Why not? He's the Son of God, for crying out loud. He's inherently and authentically...awesome.

            “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering.” (Isaiah 53:2-3) 
             Instead of relying on outward appearances, Jesus chose to come in quietly, into a humble position. He chose to become ordinary—the Son of God, the One and Only, became like the commonest of man. Nothing in his human nature drew men to himself. It was only the power of his Word and the authenticity of his presence that commanded obedience, yet this came only from those able to discern the divine character within the human form.

            Jesus' purpose was not to make his encounter with mankind easy for himself, but to be a model and example of the kind of follower God desires.  His life and death on Earth make it possible for us to become a new kind of person, characterized not by outward appearances but by the inner qualities of humility, purity, and wholehearted devotion to God.