God Resisteth the Proud
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and he shall lift you up. (James 3:10)
A DEAR and wise friend recently observed that being a politician is the worst possible profession because, with very few exceptions, it always ends with losing. I have been thinking about this a lot lately watching the various party leadership battles and elections going on.
Take, for instance, the Democratic primaries in the States. You have over twenty people, each of whom has achieved the highest levels of success in their respective professions – state senators, governors, captains of industry – and then, driven by ambition, they have put every part of their lives on hold for a year or more to campaign for the chance to run in another election. The cost is enormous. Financially certainly, but more the expense of setting aside your family and other personal relationships, abandoning other vocational responsibilities and opportunities and diminishing your general quality of life. Only one candidate can win, yet so frequently you see people jump into these races who you know have no chance of winning, yet blinded by ambition, they construct a narrative in their minds by which they could grasp the prize. While I think we all know of and can recall politicians who are driven by a sense of civic virtue, increasingly it seems that a political career is a fanatical drive to the level of your highest failure in pursuit of a corruptible crown. Thankfully, the Church is not like that. Ha!
John Owen (1616-1663) Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, writes: ※There was no vicious, corrupt deposition of mind that began more early to work in church-officers, nor did more grow and thrive in the minds of many, than ambition, with desire of pre-eminence, dignity, and rule.§
This sort of ambition for pre-eminence, or ambition for power to rule should not be known amongst Christians or be characteristic of the Church, and it is time to work on it.
Owen continues: ※…Wherefore the Scripture saith, ＆God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble…. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up＊§ (James 3:10 & 1 Peter 5:5).
The Epistle of James calls us to enter the season of Lent by setting aside our ambition to exalt ourselves, because as long as we choose the praise and methods of this world, we are acting as an enemy of God. Instead God promises to extend his grace to the lives of those who are humble. Our Lenten journey, then, is a path of growing in humility – setting aside our worldly ambitions and desires, and allowing God to perform his will in and through us.
How do we do this? Humility is not achieved through self-examination and self-improvement. It is the fruit of self-mortification. C.S. Lewis famously wrote that the truly humble man ※will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.§
Have you ever noticed how frequently we are urged to look at Christ in the Scriptures? When Paul urges the Christians in Philippi to grow in humility, he does not provide them with a 3-step self-improvement model, but rather says: Look at Christ. Look at his humility. Look how he emptied himself of his worldly ambitions and rights. Look how he set aside his heavenly dignity and allowed the ignoble passions and injustices of the world to have their way. That is the path of exaltation. Be like him.
Pride is the chief of sins. Other sins such as envy, lust and greed may present themselves more in our lives, but it is pride that fuels their growth. It is a toxic poison that can kill us all if it goes untreated. Remember the brass serpent that the Lord instructed Moses to lift up in the wilderness for the afflicted Israelites? Those who looked upon the brass serpent were healed. As we turn away from ourselves and set our gaze upon our crucified Lord, who was lifted up on Calvary, we are healed.
I confess that I have never been a fan of bespoke Lenten disciplines as they still place me at the centre. The traditional Lenten disciplines help to displace us. Fasting and almsgiving are a shock to our normal preoccupation with ourselves, and Scripture reading and prayer put the proper focus of attention before our eyes.
Brothers and Sisters, it is time. It is time to do battle with Pride and it is the only battle that can be won by running away. Fleeing ourselves, abandoning our vain ambitions and surrendering ourselves at the Cross of Christ. Let us humble ourselves before him and in due course he will lift us up. TAP
