The great mystery of God’s compassion is
that in his compassion, in his entering with us into the condition of a slave,
he reveals himself to us as God. His
becoming a servant is not an exception to his being God. His self-emptying and
humiliation are not a step away from his true nature. His becoming as we are and dying on a cross
is not a temporary interruption of his divine existence. Rather, in the emptied and humbled Christ we
encounter God, we see who God really is, we come to know his true divinity…. It
is in his servanthood that God chooses to reveal himself as God to us.
Therefore, we can say that the downward pull as we see this in Jesus Christ is
not a movement away from God, but a movement toward him as he really is: a God for us who came not to rule but to
serve… Servanthood is God’s self-revelation.
--Henri Nouwen, Compassion
Image source: San Francisco artist Stefan
Salinas, Baptism of Christ, Baptistry
Mural, gold leaf and acrylic, St. Stephen Catholic Church, 451 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco. Posted with the permission of the artist. To
see additional panels of this amazing (and brand new!) mural, visit: www.stefansalinas.com/publicworks#/baptistry
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