About a year ago I had a stray cat show up on my porch. At first I thought it was just a neighbor's pet who decided to hang out at my place. Not knowing its name I called him "Garfield" because of his resemblence to the cartoon character of the same name. As time went on I realized that "Garfield" was not a neighborhood cat, but was lost, abandoned or a ferrel cat. Eventually, I befriended him and gained a little bit of trust. Because I was not in a position to care for him myself, and did not know if he belonged to anybody, I took him to an animal shelter called The Dumb Friends league. I will never know what will become of Garfield, but I least know he will be loved and cared for during whatever remains of his life. I never knew why the shelter used the name "Dumb Friends." So, I looked it up on their website. I found out that when the League was founded, the term dumb was used to refer to those who could not speak. Their mission statement says that they are "speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves." This discovery made me wonder about how so many people long to communicate with God.
"In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven." Hebrews 11: 1-3
One of my favorite stories illustrating why God became a man, in Christ, is the Hindu and the Anthill.
There was a man from India who was a devout member of a Hindu sect and who had a profound sense of reverence for life. He would not kill an ant, a cow, or even a cobra, because to him, due to his belief in reincarnation, he might be killing some past relative. During his visit to America, he had been confronted with the claims of Christ, yet he could not grasp the biblical truth that God actually visited this planet in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He could not comprehend how the Great Creator God of the Universe could become a man, or why. One day as he was walking in the field meditating upon this new truth about Jesus the Christ being God, he was wondering how this could possibly be. He ran across a large anthill with thousands of little ants scurrying around in their busy like manner. He was standing there observing with wonder the activity of these ants, and what amazing creatures they are, when suddenly, he heard a tremendous and threatening noise. It was the noise of a large tractor plowing the fields. As he looked up he discovered that the tractor would soon be plowing through that ant hill and thousands of ants would probably be killed and their home destroyed. Gripped with the same concern you and I would feel for hundreds of people trapped in a burning building, he became frantic. He wanted to warn them of their impending destruction. He thought to himself, "How can I warn them? If I could write in the sand, they wouldn't be able to read it. If I shouted to them, they wouldn't understand me. The only possible way I could communicate with them would be by becoming an ant, if I had that ability." Then suddenly he had a revelation from the Spirit of God. He saw why God, the Creator of the universe, chose to become one of us by becoming a man, in the Person of the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth.
In the blink of an eye, the Hindu understood the truths about Jesus Christ and His claim to be God in the flesh. The Hindus love for the ants was a picture of the love God has for him and the rest of mankind. As Hebrews states, God tried to reach mankind in various ways, but we would not respond to Him. Therefore, out of His love for mankind, He became one of us in order to communicate His love for us and offer us forgiveness and life in His Son.
"Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!" Philippians 2: 5-8
We should be humbled to learn that God loves us so much that He became a man in order to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. As we see, God "made himself nothing." That "nothing" He became is a reference to us. Without God we are nothing because we were created, in Adam, to be indwelt by the very life of God. But, because of sin, we are born into this world separated from God. Apart from Him we cannot function properly as we were created to function. Not only are we dead to God, but it is impossible for us to properly communicate with Him without His life in us. Being dead to Him means we are alive to the world. And that is why you see so many people trying to reach up to God through a variety of ways using whatever the world has to offer. The most obvious of these methods is religion. No matter what the religion, you will have at its core the fundamental belief that if you follow certain directives you can do the impossible and reach up to God. But, the more we try to reach up to God in self-effort, the farther away from Him we get. If we would only listen to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ, we would be able to understand exactly what it is He is trying to communicate to us.
"So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." Galatians 4: 3-7
"Garfield" was unable to communicate to me. He couldn't tell me his name, where he lived, if he was hurting or what he needed. All he could do was show up on my doorstep and hope that I would take care of him. Eventually, it was up to me to bridge the communication gap and intercede by taking him to the shelter in an effort to save his life. He was incapable of saving Himself through anything he did. In much the same way, we could not save ourselves from eternal separation from God. This is a truth the Hindu realized during his encounter with the ants and the tractor. The tractor represented that eternal separation from God and the ants, no matter how hard they tried, were powerless to stop it. God, in an effort to communicate with mankind wrote to us, but we would not read. He called to us, but we would not listen. But, at just the right time, God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Through faith in Jesus Christ we have the life of God restored to us and are now able to call ourselves His children and are heirs to all that He has promised us in Christ. We now have fellowship with Him and are able to communicate with Him. So much so, that we can call out to Him saying, "Abba, Father" because He hears us.
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