Devotional: The Peculiar Politics of Christ

Dear God of self-emptying love,

You could have arrived in a chariot of fire, flanked by legions of angels, demanding tribute from every nation on earth. Instead, You chose a feeding trough in an occupied territory. You chose calloused hands and sawdust under Your fingernails. You chose to wash the feet of the man who would betray You before the night was over.

This is Your peculiar politics — the kenosis, the great self-emptying that Paul describes in his letter to the Philippians. While every empire in history has clawed its way upward, You descended. While Caesar minted coins stamped with his own divine image, You knelt with a towel and a basin. The cross was Rome's instrument of political terror, and You transformed it into the throne from which You govern the universe.

Lord, teach me this downward mobility. When I am tempted to grasp for status, for control, for the final word in an argument — remind me that You, being in very nature God, did not consider equality something to be exploited. Give me the courage to sit with the person no one else will sit with at the parish potluck. Give me the grace to listen before I speak, to serve before I lead, to lose an argument rather than lose a brother or sister.