Holy Fool

By most accounts, condescension is considered a negative in today's language.  Condescend has been re-defined as a tone of superiority that patronizes another.  This is not it's original meaning however.

John Wesley once wrote, "God himself has condescended to teach the way: for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price give me the Book of God!" God's condescension is not patronizing, it is rather his making himself known to us on our level of understanding.  God has let himself down into mankind out of love and respect for his creation.  This takes place mainly in The Word–the Logos of God–that is Jesus Christ, through scripture, and through his Holy Spirit.

How beautiful and good is it that the Lord of the universe should come to us then on our own level, where we are at?  God strips away the barriers that keep us from him, and does so in order to pull us towards him.  As Karl Barth notes:

Sin is obviously the negation, the opposite of what God does for us in Jesus Christ in condescending to us, in humbling Himself, in becoming a servant to take to Himself and away from us our guilt and sickness.  This is the grace of God in its first form: God gives Himself to us, He makes Himself responsible for our cause, He takes it into His own hand.  And the commandment is clear–it is necessarily a matter of our basing our being and activity on the fact that God is ours, that we are the recipients of this gift which is so inconceivably great.  Sin in its first form is pride.  When God condescends to man, when He makes Himself one with Him in order to be truly his God...

Rather than a force of oppressive weight, God's condescension is our very means of salvation.  As followers of Christ then we are recipients of the salvation because of our identification within the community that is the Body of Christ.  As co-recipients of that grace we are then drawn into God through the same love that binds God the Father, Son, and Spirit as one.  Not only are we bound to God, but to each-other in God as the Body of Christ.

So, next time you think of the word condescend you might have a different perspective.