I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.
Jesus rejoiced in the great reversal being accomplished by his Father. This was same reversal of which Paul wrote, saying "since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe" (see First Corinthians 1:21). Why was God pleased to make "foolish the wisdom of the world"? (see First Corinthians 1:22). It was in choosing what was "low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (see First Corinthians 1:28-29). But God had no need to humble the proud for his own sake, as if he needed to vindicate his ego, or eliminate possible rivals. He did so for the sake of the world, which didn't fully understand how much suffering was caused by all of the bluster, pride, and arrogance of which it was full.
God himself did not cling to the privileges of divinity or the image of greatness. He was the one most entitled to lord his authority over others. And yet he chose to save the world by sending the Son to be born as a poor carpenter, as one who came to serve. The deepest truth of reality was not pride, but rather, self-emptying love. Pride was ultimately unrealistic and unsustainable. Not only was it trying to usurp the place of God oneself. It was to do so in a way that was inconsistent with the inner life of God. It was by definition a form of idolatry, creating a god of oneself, according to one's own blueprint and design. But such attitudes infected the fallen creation like a cancer. And only the great reversal manifest in the person of Jesus was an adequate cure.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows who the Son is except the Father,
and who the Father is except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.
Jesus was the one who came from the Father, who did everything for his good pleasure. His love of the Father made him prefer the Father's will to any alternative. It was in virtue of this that he knew the Father in a way that others could not. But Jesus was able to share his inner perspective, his own relationship to the Father, with those who were united to him as his disciples. But it was not possible to ascertain this perspective from a dispassionate and detached remote analysis of the Son. The only ones who were able to share the life of the Son was those who allowed themselves to be drawn to him by the Father. Flesh and blood was insufficient, as Peter learned (see Matthew 16:17). There was no fixed position in this arrangement for an ego to fortify as its own. It was giving and receiving all the way down. There was no place for possessiveness, no room for boasting as though for one's own accomplishment.
Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
For I say to you,
many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,
but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.
We are living once more the season of Advent in which prophets like Isaiah speak to us of the things that they desired to see, the shoot that would sprout from the stump of Jesse, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations. We have seen what they desired to see and heard what they desired to hear. And we will do so again, as if for the first time, this Christmas. We have a more exact sense than they of whom we are expecting, the birth on Christmas mourn for which we long. And because of this our yearning and expectation can, if anything, be still the greater. Jesus turned out to be even better than predicted and we have not yet begun to plumb the depths of that greatness. Let's prepare to welcome him once more, knowing that, if our eyes and ears were blessed in years past, there is always more to discover. Let us seek him out, " for his dwelling shall be glorious".
Maranatha! Music - Here I Am To Worship
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