The Way Up is Down

I heard a story of a preacher who was invited to preach amongst peasants. The preacher came up the podium with much pomp and proceeded to serenade the audience with high sounding rhetoric. He lambasted them with theology and riddled them with metaphoric axioms. The poor folks could not understand a word of what he said but nodded politely in response. Seeing that he had lost his audience, the preacher shut his bible and came down the podium in shame. An old wise woman sitting at the back of the building shook her head in pity and said:

If only he had gone up the way he came down, he would have come down the way he went up.

As a young child, I remember one day, sitting in our yard with my dad, watching neighboring children play. A man who was courting my sister at the time came to visit. He came in a flashy Mercedes, and with a lot of pomp, garnering all the attention. He walked past my dad and I on his way to see my sister, without a simple greeting. My dad tapped me on the shoulder and said “Look who is trying to get a wife?”. Needless to say, my sister is married today, but not to that guy.

God is so big because He makes Himself so little, in so much that the simple can understand Him. The King of Kings chose to make His entrance through a manger, not a red carpet sky appearance . There was no rock star attitude to him.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death .. wherefore God has exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name – Philippians 2:8-9

The way up is down