26: The Spiritual Journey 2/11

2- The Journey of the "Son of God"

Let us take a closer look at the "Journey" of the Son of God. When we say "Son of God" we obviously mean the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, who is God.

In order to follow the full movement of His descent we will be following the text of the letter of saint Paul to the Philippians.

"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; "Christ Jesus: rather, 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!" (Phil 2:5-8)

For the sake of showing the various steps in the descending movement of Incarnation, I will split that text in different moments as follows:

2- The journey of the Son of God

But, as you see, Jesus will grow, in His human nature, as saint Luke says: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52). Not only that, but in His mission, He has various steps.

1- The moment of Incarnation: The Son takes flesh in Mary's womb.

2- At the age of 30, he starts his ministry: "Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age" (Luke 3:23).

3- After probably around 3 years, He heads toward Jerusalem: "After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem" (Luke 19:28).

4- He enters in His Passion, and becomes "like a slave" (Philippians 2).

5- On the Cross, for 6 hours, he dies, giving Himself to us.

During the moment of Death, there is an exchange: Jesus receives us in Him, and gives us his life. He takes our death, our sins, all our being, as he is, far from God, all in the darkness, and gives us His divine life, his Body, his Soul, his Spirit.

Development

As we can see, there is a development in Jesus life, in the Son of God's life on earth. These further steps show us that we can't just understand His life as being a linear plane, with just one great act at the End, the act of Redemption on the Cross.

Our perception of "time" and of its elapse is starting to change.

For instance, there is a big difference in Jesus' life between the years before His ministry and after. Similarly, there is a big difference between the months (/years) before He heads toward Jerusalem and after. This is the same as well for the moment He enters in His Passion.

Let us keep this in mind while deepening our understanding of the Incarnation, and Jesus' way, for his human nature.

Remember as well

We are saved by His human nature, by His own human will (see Third Council of Constantinople: 680-681 A.D.). His own human nature and his own human will had their own journey of growth and will constitute for us our own journey of growth, because He is mystically carrying each one of us in order to become our Way.

PS Please, just be patient, we are going, step by step, and it requires some more posts to have a better picture.

(to be continued...)