Like most experiences in life, my brother’s stroke has given me an opportunity to consider things I might never have thought of had I not been with him. He is doing well, but seeing him so handicapped by the medication and sickness is so frustrating. I am thankful that he is beginning to speak again, and we are optimistic for the future, but at the moment that vibrant soul within him struggles to be part of all that is happening around him. The Jerry I know is inside that body, but that body keeps him from being the hero I have had throughout the years.
However, this article is not about Jerry but about my older brother who was born in Nazareth. That was His birthplace, but for eons He had lived in another world. That world was so different, but He gave it all up to come and live in a mortal body which handicapped Him immeasurably. Because of His greatness, He was the most handicapped man who has ever lived.
And, oh, how that body handicapped Him. He had been in the form of God. Now, He found Himself in the form of a mortal! The Bible says, “He humbled Himself” (Phil. 2:8), but what a humiliation it was! Paul described His coming into the world with the Greek saying, “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of a human being” (Phil. 2:7). We may view the body of Jesus through the eyes of the artists who have painted Him, but His view of that body had to be so different from our view of it. It was a body that entrapped Him and robbed Him of His glory.
He was omniscient but not in that body. There was nothing He did not know, yet when on this earth there were things He did not know. Concerning His return, He said that no man knows of that day and hour, “not even the Son” (Mark 13:32). His body handicapped Him.
He was omnipresent but not in that body. If there ever was anyone who truly had a “world view” it was the Savior from all eternity. Now, His body got in His way. He was where His body forced Him to be. He was handicapped.
He was omnipotent but not in that body. For the first time, He was hungry, thirsty, feeling pain, experiencing temptation, lonely and dying. Such cannot happen to Deity—but it did! He who was the Son of God, became the Son of man. He who rules the world with power, suffered the spit of sinful men on His face, endured the scourging whip, heard the mocking of the mobs and died the cruelest death.
He chose that handicapped body for you!