Servant God

"Here we see what compassion means. It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there. God's compassion ts total, absolute, unconditional, without reservation. It is the compassion of the one who keeps going to the most forgotten corners of the world, and who cannot rest as long as there are still human beings with tears in their eyes. It is the compassion of a God who does not merely act as a servant, but who expresses the divinity of God through servanthood." -Henri Nouwen

Jesus' compassion is characterized by a downward pull. He came not to be served but to serve. He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

It's hard to wrap your mind around that when it seems like an 'upward pull' and upward mobility is what we're all about and what we strive for in life. Sometimes I wish following Jesus was easier. But therein lies the mystery of the Christian life.. that if we lose our life for Jesus and for the gospel, that we will actually find life (Mark 8:35). And that's not some twisted oxymoron either, because as Henri Nouwen puts it, the downward pull is not a movement away from God, but a movement toward God.