What Jesus primarily models for us is how to draw our life from the Father. This passage from Philippians — one of the earliest hymns of the faith — says that Jesus more than humbled himself when he came to earth. He emptied himself:

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. (Philippians 2:6–7)

The kenosis of Christ, a mystery we cannot fully explain nor explain away — the choice Jesus made to “empty” himself of his divine powers and prerogatives in order to take on the limitations of humanity.

If Jesus was pretending to be a man, then his life is so far beyond ours it can’t really be a model for us to follow. To err is human, to forgive is divine and all that. But, if Jesus chose a genuine humanity, and drew his power from the Father as we must do, then we can live as he did.

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