Not grasped

I was searching through some old books this morning, looking for something for an upcoming class. I picked up my copy of My Utmost for His Highest, a classic daily devotional by Oswald Chambers, first published in 1935. I have always loved this book, and I return to it every few years. I turned to the words for May 17.

In the meditation for today, Chambers writes that prior to the transfiguration, Jesus lived a normal, but perfect life for a man. From the transfiguration through the ascension, Chambers says, Jesus's life was altogether substitutionary, unfamiliar to us. Transfiguration, Gethsemene, the cross, the resurrection, ascension. It was a wholly different and absolutely holy time.

"The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension," writes Chambers. "If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity."

Turned his back on the glory . . . that set me thinking of Philippians 2.

"Your attitude should be the same as that of 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!

I've always read that Philippians passage in light of Jesus' birth. That is, he did not consider his position in heaven with God something to be held on to, but became a man, was born into this world. He came to earth and looked like us.

Now I wonder if that passage might also be considered in light of Jesus' transfiguration. He did not consider being glorified on the mountaintop something to cling to. He did in fact turn from the transfiguration, from the radiance, from the immediate presence of God and decend from the mountaintop, back down into our world with its pain and brokenness. He came down and looked again like a normal man.

That makes me think that humbling himself/emptying himself (as some translations say) was not a one-time decision/action. It makes me think that Jesus might have had many opportunities to "grasp his equality with God" and each time might have humbled himself, turning his back on his own glory.

Maybe he had to reject his equality with God every time he was tempted to use his powers -- with the devil in the dessert, when the Jewish leaders mocked him, when he hung on the cross and could have called ten thousand angels.

We know that Jesus often went alone to the mountain to pray. I've wondered if he was transfigured each time, but it was not reported because no one was there to see it. If so, then he would have turned from glory over and over when he returned to his work with the disciples.

What an interesting glimpse of Christ's generous self-sacrifice.