It’s hard to be a nothing! Everyone wants to
feel important, like we matter to someone. It is wired into our brains by God
to need other people, to be safely connected to others.
We also want to feel like what we are doing
matters, that we are making a positive difference in the world. There is
something inside us that drives us on toward this goal, unless we repeatedly
tell it to shut up.
We also want to be able to make choices that
suit our needs. We don’t always want to do what the other person wants.
Sometimes we want our way.
These are exactly the things Jesus had to
purposefully choose to ignore when He was here on earth. He made himself
nothing. The things He wanted to do, He didn’t do. Other people, including you
and me, were more important than He was in His life. To put it another way, He
choose to not be safely connected with others in order that we could be safely
connected to God. Jesus knew what was in mankind, so He didn’t entrust Himself
to us (Jn 2:24).
Our passage says that we are to have the
same attitude as Jesus had. We are to think of others ahead of ourselves. They
are supposed to be the priority in our lives. Jesus is God and had every right
to exercise His authority here on earth, but He chose to hold back. We may be
in positions of authority right now and with those positions often come perks.
We can choose to not use our perks in order for someone else to get the benefit.
We could give our bonus to someone else who needs it more than we do, even
though we earned it.
But wait a minute! Don’t I get my fare
share? Don’t I get what I deserve? Well, to be honest, you and I both deserve
the punishment that Jesus took. Do you really want the beating, public
humiliation and crucifixion? Well, I don’t deserve that. I haven’t done that
much wrong. Maybe I just deserve 30 lashes with a wet noodle! Really, are you
going to be that stubborn and deny what other people see, what God sees, and
try to walk around with that holier than thou attitude? It is exactly that
attitude that Jesus is getting at. He truly didn’t deserve the rejection He
received, but He took it because it was what was necessary to bring us back
into relationship with God.
He made Himself nothing. Maybe we need to
work on thinking of ourselves a little less, a lot less. We can learn t set
aside whatever privileges we might have and learn to serve others.