Almighty
God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of
light, now in the time of this
mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and
the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
As we consider the prayer for the First Sunday of Advent, we
are reminded that Jesus, the Light of the Word, came in ‘great humility.’ St.
Paul reminds the Philippians that they should “Do nothing out of selfish ambition
or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking
to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians
2:3-4)
Jesus was fully God, yet he became fully human in order to
bring humanity back to relationship with God. Paul points out just a little
later in Philippians that “[Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider
equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.” (Philippians 2:6)
The image of a small ant, and D.L. Moody’s comment that ‘we
may easily be too big for God to use, but never too small’ is another
definition of humility.
What is your definition of humility?
