He Came Down

The distressed peeping from the pigpen was not a piglet. 

As I leaned in closer to look, I saw a speck of movement in the mud. 

It was a fuzzy yellow pheasant chick. My son jumped in the mud, reached down, and took hold of the struggling baby. He handed it to me. It was shivering, filthy, and alone.

We cleaned it off and hurried it to a heatlamp. It plopped down, exhausted, but now, it was clean, warm, and dry.

In the same week, I answered distressed questions from young women who were the spiritual equivalent of shivering, filthy, and alone.

“What do I do if I just want to die?”

“How can I stop cutting myself if I hate myself so much?”

“What do you do when you just want to numb everything?”

They are wallowing in the spiritual mud. Maybe hurt, abuse, loneliness, or other trauma has led them to these extremes. Whatever has brought them down, they see no way to get back up.

They resort to relying on self. Self will be mom and dad. Self will make the money that’s needed. Self will get a degree. Self will pull it all together and be strong. Self will rule the world. Self will dictate the moment of death and degree of suffering.

These women don’t need a healthier view of self. 

“There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way to death.”

These young women- and many like them- need the Son of God to come along and jump in the mud, reach down, and take hold of them to rescue them from their hurt and from the false god of self that leads only to death.

Jesus- the Son of God- emptied Himself. He came down where we are. He took our hurts on Himself so that we would have the strength to stand.

When He taught the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus went up. He led the crowds of people up on a mountain. What a view they must have had! We all need Jesus to lift us up.

But then, He sat down to teach them. He got down on their level.

This week at Bible club, one of the youngest children, a little girl who is two or three, came late. She had missed the lesson, so I told it to her again. It was the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus points to the birds: “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet our heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

As I spoke to her, I knelt down, so we were face to face. I gave her a little stuffed bird and reminded her that Jesus made her and loves her. I thought then about that little pheasant chick that we had scooped out of the mud. What a picture of her! What a picture of me!

Jesus kneels down to our level, reminding us to deny self and allow Him to raise us up with Him, healing every past hurt. In Him, and only in Him, are we clean, warm, and dry.