The way up is down

This morning as I readied myself for church, I was listening to @theportersgate's newest album, "Sanctuary Songs," that focuses on faith and mental health. These lines from the song "Christ is Lower Still" stopped me cold:

"In your wounds I find room for all of mine. When from grace I fell, Christ was lower still."

Do we really contemplate the incarnation enough? Maybe at Advent or Easter, but in October? June? February?

My pastor at @onefamilystl is currently preaching through Philippians, and wouldn't you know it, his text this morning was from Phil. 2:1-11, that wondrous passage that crescendoes to the glorious climax in verses 10-11:

". . . that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

We really like that part, don't we? But as Pastor Brent pointed out, what is remarkable is the condescension in verses 7-8:
". . . he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!"

As Richard Rohr has written, "the way up is the way down."

Friends, I cried all the way home from church this morning, contemplating the incarnation, Christ's suffering, and his dogged insistence on being with us in our own.

Midway through the song "Christ is Lower Still," we are reminded,

". . . till the earth is new, Christ is lower still."

I find such hope that, a "structure to hang pain on," as Rebekah Eklund wrote in her book, "Practicing Lament."

Christ is STILL lower, STILL in the depths of our suffering, STILL there waiting for us and with us.