Several men in the old testament had agonized over the triviality of human life. Bildad while advising Job in Ch 25 compares a son of man negatively to the moon and the stars and says he is less likley to be pure as he is only a maggot and a worm. King David in Psalms 8:3-5 muses, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings". Again in Psalms 144 he wonders, "O LORD, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow." In Numbers 23:19, we find that man is called a liar who speaks and does not act, one who changes his mind and does not fulfil his promise. Man who had been created in God's image, had stooped to this depth over time, and God was about to act to restore him to his original glory.
Phil 2:5-7 states that Jesus, "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!" He did not hold on to his status as the Son of God, but came down to become a Son of Man. In Eph 5:23 we find that "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her", as an ideal husband does for a wife he loves. In verses 32 and 33, we find that marriage on earth is a type of God's union with man. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Paul calls this a Profound mystery.
His union with man is not a 33 year old affair that is reversed and forgotten for eternity. It has forever changed the Son of God. God who is a spirit, and who does not live in a body of flesh, came down to inhabit a body and forever carries the mark of that intervention. That is what we find in John 20, where on the evening of that first day of the week after his death, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Jesus showed him once again to Thomas who said "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it", and asked him "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." Apostle John in Rev 5:6 sees Jesus as " a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne". Even today, he carries marks that will remind him of the days he walked among men.
Why did he intervene in an irreversible manner as this? Hebrews 2:9-11 say that we see Jesus, who as a Son of Man was made a little lower than the angels, "now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. Further in verses 14-15 we read, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death".
Jesus descended to depths, enmeshed himself with us, and has picked us up into glory together with him. Son of God became son of man, to help the sons of men become Sons of God. Hebrews 2:16 points out that he did not do such a thing for the Angels. From this intervention we see that the sons of men are precious in His sight, more than anything else. Today, we need not despair as Job or David did. We need not doubt if God really cares for man. When God looks at Jesus, bearing the marks of the cost he had borne to make us his brothers, he forgives us and accepts us as His children. Today, we know that we are worth all the trouble he has taken to restore us to former glory and have the hope of becoming Sons of God. That is what Christ's sojourn on earth 2000 years ago, has done for humanity.
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