I’ve been wrestling a lot lately with the power games we human beings play, the ways in which power is abused even in the Church (#churchtoo), the ways in which power has distorted the way we live out our calling as Image Bearers, the way power and position seduce my own soul. So, it is no surprise to me that as I read through the accounts of Last Supper to resurrection in the gospels that the Holy Spirit is drawing my attention in new and fresh ways to how God loves to “chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful” (1 Cor. 1:27).
Take for instance the thief on the cross. I was mind-blown in the way that you can read something a million times and then one day POOM! Think of this, the disciples themselves still don’t really get it, they have scattered, they have denied, they are hanging in the periphery, they are disillusioned and confused, and this thief condemned to death confesses his guilt and proclaims, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom” (Luke 23:42). How in the world does this man get that Jesus’ Kingdom is not a political kingdom of this world?
Or the Roman officer, a gentile, an oppressor, despised. He worships God in the moment of Jesus’ death, exclaiming “This man truly was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39) and “Surely this man was innocent” (Luke 23:47). Isn’t that incredible?
And there are the women, who seem to stick closer during Jesus suffering, death and burial than the majority of The Twelve. It is to them that the news of Jesus’ resurrection is first revealed. Later it is Mary Magdalene who first sees the risen Jesus. Totally upside-down considering that Jesus is entrusting the very first evangelist with a testimony that would not have been considered valid or trustworthy as women were not considered competent witnesses in that time.
Finally and with exclamation point emphasis we have the very example of Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:6-11