Loving the Low Life
I’m not allowed to dance. Not in public, anyway.
My friends and family discovered, long before I did, that I was not blessed with the grace or ability to dance. It seems that while my knees function just fine during walking and bending, my knees completely fail me when I dance. I sort of look like a stiff robot. This makes onlookers quite uncomfortable (or so I have been told.) So, I usually just sit on the side and sway in my seat and tap my toes.
There is one dance that I have not given up on, however. It may be the competitor in me but I cannot say no to the Limbo. You know, that Hawaiian concoction using a rapid drumbeat and a bamboo pole. Whenever someone starts one up I just have to see “how low can I go?”
As you might predict, given my ungraceful knee issues, I have never “gone very low” in a limbo dance. (One time I fell out of the dance so early I snuffed out a nearby tiki-torch for revenge. For which I was soon escorted from the event. But that’s another story.)
The limbo is interesting to me. Most competitions, be they dance or athletic, measure and reward the winner for lasting the longest, running the farthest, jumping the highest or achieving the most. It's one of the few challenges with a prize for going the lowest. And I think that is what appeals to me. The one who goes the lowest is rewarded for his or her efforts.
Jesus would have been great at the limbo. Here He was, the Son of God hanging out in Heaven on high but that was not the life for Him. Heaven, it seems, was too high a place for God’s Son to teach the world. So, the King left His home and got low.
Jesus was not sent to earth with all the power and prestige that rightfully belonged to Him. No, He was striped bare of all His position. He could have come in any form. As a full adult if He so chose. But instead He entered our world an infant with all the helplessness that brings. He chose to go low in order to woo us.
Jesus’s birth was anything but what I would expect when a King is being born. There was no celebrating with extended family. We are not told of any of the usual birth celebration rituals of the day taking place for Jesus as they did for his cousin John born six months prior.
Mary and Joseph were not with family when they brought their son and the Son of God into the world. Joseph was a mere carpenter. They were teenagers. They were alone. In a stable. With hay for their son’s first bed. Having to feed and change the Son of God. In fact, the first ones to visit and celebrate Jesus were lowly shepherds. Nothing high and mighty there.
God is a big God and I expect Him to act in big and mighty ways. But when it came to arguably one of the most important events in the history of the world 1, God went low. And Jesus spent His entire life on earth “going low.” He didn’t call attention to Himself. His message was all about loving and helping other people, not yourself.
Loving through living the low life.
And people flocked to Him. He was approachable. He was humble. His heart was open to everyone – peasants and princes – alike. If God had sent Jesus to us in His true form and rightful position I don’t think it would have worked. Some would have been intimidated by His majesty; some would have been put off by a princely arrogance. Others would have ignored Him completely. But because of the way He arrived and the way He lived and the way He died (like a common criminal) He changed hearts, minds and lives. For all eternity.
Low was the only way to go.
Therein lies the challenge. How low can I go? It’s tough I admit. I don’t feel like livin’ “la vida low” sometimes. Because some days I get in the way of me. But when I do go low I love it. I find such peace in the low life. When I am able take my focus off myself and put it on others my spirit soars. That’s when I feel closest to My Savior – loving and living.
The dance is hard and I bump my head a lot on that bamboo pole because I’m not going low enough. But the good news is is that each day I get another chance at the dance and another chance to see how low I can go.
And the best part is no graceful knees required for this limbo dance.
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1 - Big statement but every thing in history is divided into two time periods – before Christ’s birth and after it.
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