I had one of those profound experiences yesterday, you know where you get caught up in a song of worship. Notice I didn't say a 'worship song', you gotta tread carefully these days LOL. Anyway, there we were the intimate little band of brothers and sisters in Christ who live in West London together for our monthly gathering in our house singing our hearts out. It was when we sang the chorus "I stand, I stand in awe of you" that my mind floated away. I found myself in an unexpected but welcome place. There I was transported back to the Catholic Church of my youth and I was doing what is called the Via Dolorosa or The Stations of the Cross. The ritual is one of the most important Lent observances and something I loved as a child. We'd process around the church and reflect upon the various pieces of art that depict what is known as the Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross.
The chorus came wave after wave and as the words wafted around our home I could see those first few stations.
The first depicts Jesus being condemned to death, the second features him being given his cross to carry and the third him stumbling for the first time under the weight and burden that he bore.
"I stand I stand in awe of you" continued the refrain.
The more I thought about those words, the more I felt a sense of awe.
Oh that we would rediscover our passion for the passion.
It's hard to grasp don't you think that He who was never anything less than God would become nothing more than a man in order that we who as a result of the Fall had been reduced to being nothing more than mere men to be restored to being fully and functioning as a part of God. Not gods apart from God but a fully-functioning part of God, partners not mere passengers.
For me the first lesson that I learn at the first of these three stations of the cross is that when you're really big you don't mind being made to look small.
I sensed in such a deep way I entered into hIs condescension the that humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
No wonder the Apostle Paul would later write … "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who, though, he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the form of a bondservant. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Phil 2:5-8