As we head into the last days of Christ's journey on earth I found this section of a book I'm currently reading (Servanthood - Leadership for the 3rd Millennium by B. Sims) to be one I'm spending some time thinking about - this whole idea of Christ as servant.........thoughts?
"We can't have it both ways. We cannot have a God who is an iron-handed ruler in remote control of the cosmos and, at the same time, a historic incarnation of that God who consistently defines himself as a servant. To those whom He most carefully instructed Jesus posed a question, "For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves' (Luke 22:27). Such passages force us to choose between a God enthroned in the power of imperial privilege and a God "disenthroned" in the more exquisite power of servanthood - unless Jesus is not really God's self-disclosure. If the Christian doctrine of God is to be consistent with the orthodox claim that Jesus is God's incarnation, then the cosmos is ruled by a self-giving Love who chooses to endure crucifixion rather than decree any abridgment of human freedom." p.17
I agree with this quote and something I read recently added similar info in saying that if God is Love and comes as a servant in Christ, then the Kingdom will continue to come in our hearts and not through a final battle where believers go to heaven. Heaven is within us as we yield to that servanthood or holiness of God and express it to the world.
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