Everyone esteems the idea of humility. But no one wants to be humble. None of us would dare say that we have fully learned how to be humble in all circumstances. If you think you’ve mastered the virtue of humility you have only signaled that you are still in preschool when it comes to this grace. As the old quip goes, “If you won a trophy for humility would you put it on your shelf?”
This meal reminds us and testifies to the only perfected humility the world has ever seen. Here is pure, unalloyed humility. This meal shows the Lord’s death until He comes. That death is, in holy irony, the pinnacle of lowliness. The Most High and everliving God the Son became a man, and then went down in the depths of death.
The Highest went the lowest. The holiest became accursed. The Word of Life and Light went down into death and darkness. He did this, with eyes wide open, with full knowledge of what He was undertaking. He did all this for the most mysterious of reasons: to bring man out of the slums of sin and into the exalted presence of God’s glory.
Now, you are invited here to a feast in celebration of humility. The virtue which eludes us, but is perfectly demonstrated in Christ, is now the bread we eat and the wine we drink. You are beckoned to humble yourself and receive all of grace, all that God has to give, all His promises and blessings. Receive it all with simple faith, not in your righteousness or merit, but in the great humiliation of Christ. Would you be holy? Well then, humble yourself and feed upon this loaf and drink this cup of the pure humility of Christ. Those whom God humbles are the same whom He raises up.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
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