In Jesus, we clearly see God taking sides. It starts with Jesus emptying himself of all divinity (Philippians 2:6-7), coming as a homeless baby in a poor family, then a refugee in a foreign country, then an invisible carpenter in his own country which is colonized and occupied by an imperial power, ending as a “criminal,” accused and tortured by heads of both systems of power, temple and empire, abandoned by most of his inner circle, subjected to the death penalty by a most humiliating and bizarre public ritual, and finally buried quickly in an unmarked grave.
This challenges us to take the scandal and downward movement of the Incarnation seriously and rearrange our priorities. When we reject our relatedness to the poor, the weak, the simple, and the unlovable we define the family of creation over and against God. Because of our deep fears, we spend time, attention, and money on preserving our boundaries of privacy and increasing our knowledge and power. By rejecting God in our neighbor, we reject the love that can heal us.
Until we come to accept created reality with all its limits and pains as the living presence of God, Christianity has nothing to offer to the world. When we lose the priority of God’s love in weak, fragile humanity, we lose Christ, the foundation on which we stand as Christians.
Compassion continues the Incarnation by allowing the Word of God to take root within us. The Incarnation is not finished; it is not yet complete for it is to be completed in us.
Matthew 25:40 “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did it to Me.'
