Here is why I love this story so much and why it gives me such hope. Jacob is as unlikely a patriarch of faith whose legacy would change the world as they come. That God would choose him and his descendants to bless every nation on Earth is crazy on any number of levels. He is a Mama’s boy, a liar, a cheat, and a coward
That’s when the old familiar anxiety I haven’t felt in years rose up in me.
Almost involuntarily the cry of my heart came, picking up momentum as it tumbled out of my head.
“Pick me, Jesus. Please, please, please pick me. Not out of pity and please don’t just settle for me. Pick me because You want me on Your team, not because You’re so nice You have to take me.”
I found myself shocked and frightened, because I realized we live in a world where a soundbite from a bad sermon in the random town of Malden, Missouri (Population: 4,277 – 3 hours south of St Louis), can become FRONT PAGE NATIONAL NEWS. . .I’m concerned, because we seem to live in a culture where we have an overabundance of religiously and politically motivated rock-bearing Pharisees and a critical shortage of extravagant grace.
There is so much to unpack in trying to figure out what “he emptied himself” means. The truth is we don’t completely understand the mystery or the nuances of the nature of the fully God and fully man person of Jesus in the flesh. What we do know is, from the womb to the tomb, Jesus accepted the limitations of what it means to be human somehow without inheriting the fallen human nature of Adam.