God's Greatness - Part 2
God’s
Greatness – Part 2
Cl.
Mario D’Couto SDB
The
canticle of Philemon 2:6 -11 beautifully portrays the whole mission of Jesus in
a few verses, which was to pay the price for the sins of humankind. Christ
Jesus became one like us in all aspects except sin. In one of my previous
articles entitled “God’s greatness,” [Please refer to the ‘Old posts’] I had
written about a reflection made by Giovanni Papini where he speaks about how
God could be born in one of the filthiest places, one could imagine. Fulton
Sheen writes something similar in his book called, “Life of Christ.”
In
one of the filthiest places in the world, a stable, Purity was born. He, Who
was later to be slaughtered by men who would act as beasts, was born among
beasts. He, Who would call Himself the “‘Living
Bread’ descended from Heaven,” was laid in a manger, literally, a place to
eat. Centuries before, the Jews had worshipped the golden calf and the Greeks,
the ass. Men bowed down before them as before God. The ox and the ass now were
present to make their innocent reparation, bowing down before their God.
There
was no room for them in the inn, but there was room in the stable. The inn is
the gathering place of public opinion, the focal point of the world’s moods,
the rendezvous of the worldly, the rallying place of the popular and the successful.
But the stable is a place for the outcasts, the ignored, and the forgotten. The
world might have expected the Son of God to be born – if He was to be at all –
in an inn. A stable would be the last place in the world where one would have
looked for Him. Divinity is always where one least expects to find it.
No
worldly mind would ever have suspected that He Who could make the sun warm the
earth would one day have no need of an ox or an ass to warm Him with their
breath; that He Who scriptures, clothed the fields with grass, would Himself be
naked; that He, from Whose hands came planets and worlds would one day have tiny
arms that were not long enough to touch the huge heads of the cattle; that the
feet which trod the everlasting hills would one day be too weak to walk; that
the Eternal Word would be dumb; that the Omnipotence would be wrapped in
swaddling clothes; that Salvation would be in a manger; that the bird which
built the nest would be hatched therein – no one would have ever suspected that
God coming to this earth would ever be so helpless. Divinity is always where one least
expects to find it.
If
the artist is at home in his studio because the paintings are the creation of
his mind; if the sculptor is at home among his statues because they are the
work of his own hands; if the father is at home among his children because they
are his own, then surely, argues the world, He Who made the world should be at
home in it. He should come into it as an artist into his studio, and as a
father into his house; but, for the Creator, to come among His creatures and be
ignored by them; for God to come among His own and not be received by His own;
for God to be homeless at home – that could only mean one thing to the worldly
mind: the Babe could not have been God at all. Divinity is always where one least
expects to find it.
Such
was the greatness of our Lord and Master. How true were the words of our Lord, “Take
My yoke upon you. Let Me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart and
you will find rest for your soul.” (Matthew 11:29) He really lived His
humility right until His death on the Cross.