Descending Path of Jesus
Gregg’s Reflection
In our culture, we are told to climb the ladder of success. Our reputations are a major asset. Being bold, leading the charge, taking matters into our own hands are characteristics that are held up and worshiped in our society. Get a beautiful wife (even if she is the second or third), accumulate cars and vacation homes, grab the spotlight, thrive in the adulation of the masses. That is what we are taught to crave.
Living in Colorado, we climb 14,000 foot mountains, seeking the peak so we can see great landscapes unfold below us. We rarely wanted to hike into canyons, because who wants to climb back out. Who wants to drive an old beater of a car and live in a shack, surviving on meager rations? Who would choose that?
Thomas Merton lived much of his life cloistered away at the Gesthemene Monastery in Kentucky.
He could not travel or publish his books without the blessing of his Abbot. And yet, his life and writings helped us recover the contemplative traditions which had been lost. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan, has never participated in our economy. All the profits from his books and lectures go to the support of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the Living School. He lives in a small cottage on the grounds of the CAC.
These men, and many more saints and mystics, both men and women from across the centuries have modeled the descending way of Jesus. If you are drawn to a deeper spiritual journey, you will find your definition of success changing radically. As Rohr says, “Grace, like water, seeks the lowest place, and there it pools.” So, if you want to live a grace-soaked life, prepare to take the stairs down to a lower level.
As you descend, paradoxically, you also rise to the spiritual heights. Thomas Keating illustrates it this way:
So, come along on a journey into the depths of God.
Blessings, Gregg
Journaling Prompts:
Have you noticed, even in church, we admire the good looking, the well-dressed, the successful leaders? How does that contrast with the life Jesus modeled? When you see a flag in a sanctuary, what are we worshipping, God or country? Have success and material riches brought you peace and joy in your interior life? How might your life change, if you lived into the descending way Jesus modeled?
Scripture
Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor.
Proverbs 22:4
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Luke 14:11
Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:2
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should so as I have done for you.
John 13:14-15
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:5-8
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Colossians 3:12
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.
James 4:4-6
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James 4:10
But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.“
1 Peter 1:15-16
In fact, this is love for God; to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
1 John 5:3-4
Ancient Writings
If you ask me what the essential thing in the religion and discipline of Jesus Christ is, I shall reply: first, humility; second, humility; and third, humility.
St. Augustine
Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent.
St. John of the Cross
God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction. God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.
Meister Eckhart, Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality in New Translation
Humility, a right judgement of ourselves, cleanses our mind from those high conceits of our own perfections, from that undue opinion of our own abilities and attainments, which are the genuine fruit of a corrupted nature. This entirely cuts off that vain thought, I am rich and wise, and have need of nothing; and convinces us, that we are by nature wretched, and poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked.
John Wesley
Modern Writings
Jesus presents to us the great mystery of the descending way. It is the way of suffering, but also the way to healing. It is the way of humiliation, but also the way to the resurrection. It is the way of tears, but of tears that turn into tears of joy. It is the way of hiddenness, but also the way that leads to the light that will shine for all people. It is the way of persecution, oppression, martyrdom, and death, but also the way to the full disclosure of God’s love.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14–15). You see in these words how the descending way of Jesus becomes the ascending way. The “lifting up” that Jesus speaks of refers both to his being raised up on the cross in total humiliation and to his being raised up from the dead in total glorification. . . .
Each one of us has to seek out his or her own descending way of love. That calls for much prayer, much patience, and much guidance. It has nothing at all to do with spiritual heroics, dramatically throwing everything overboard to “follow” Jesus. The descending way is a way that is concealed in each person’s heart. But because it is so seldom walked on, it’s often overgrown with weeds. Slowly but surely we have to clear the weeds, open the way, and set out on it unafraid.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 3/13/24
Every time you make free time for God, you clear up a bit of the descending path, and you see where you can plant your feet on the way to love. What’s fascinating is that the first step invariably makes the second one easier. You begin to discover that love begets love, and step-by-step you move further forward on the way to God. Gradually, you shed your misgivings about the way of love; you see that “in love there is no room for fear,” and you feel yourself drawn to descend deeper and deeper on the way that Jesus walked before you.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 3/14/24
Path of Descent as the Path of Transformation. Suffering is a universal experience occurring across space and time, revealing the “big T” Truth that going down, going through, and going into the unknown can be powerfully transformative.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 3/23/20
By denying their pain, avoiding the necessary falling, many have kept themselves from their own spiritual depth-and therefore have been kept from their own spiritual heights. Because none of us desires, seeks, or even suspects a downward path to grow through imperfection, we have to get the messages with the authority of a divine revelation.
The last really do have a headstart in moving towards first and those who spend too much time trying to be first will never get there. Our resistance to the message is so great that it could be called outright denial. The human ego prefers anything to falling or changing or dying. The ego is that part of us that loves the status quo even when it’s not working.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 6/29/20
The Path of the Fall
In spirituality, there are basically two paths, what I’ve called the path of the fall and the path of the return. The path of return has been the message of the priestly class. True priests talk of religion, communion, love, transcendence, connecting this world with the next, and generally offering a coherent world of meaning. In contrast, the path of the fall is directed and legitimated by the prophets, who teach us how to go into our shadows creatively and how to lose gracefully. They teach us how to let go and let things fall apart without fear.
The role of the prophet is to lead us on an individual and collective level through the necessary deconstruction of what I would call the false self. The prophet’s path is of descent and is never popular or easy. It is about letting go of illusion and toppling false gods. People usually like priests, which is why they are established and comfortable in almost all cultures, but the prophets are almost always killed. The prophets are disrupters of the social consensus. What everybody is saying, whatever the glib agreement is, prophets say, “it’s not true.”
They do this primarily by exposing and toppling what the Hebrew Scriptures called idols, things that are made absolute that are not absolute. The tendency of religion is to absolutize. I’m sure it comes from a deep psychological need for some solid ground to stand on, but the prophets remind us that God is the only absolute. And don’t try to make the institutions of God absolutes either!
Through Jeremiah, God reminded the people: “In speaking to your ancestors on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I gave them no command concerning burnt offering or sacrifice. This is rather what I commanded them: Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk exactly in the way I command you, so that you may prosper (Jeremiah 7:22–23). Perhaps my favorite understanding of prophets is that they’re lovers of spiritual freedom who keep humanity free for God and God free for humanity. It is harder than you think.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 3/22/21
Most of us were given a theology of ascent. Christianity is the way of the wound. You come to God through your brokenness, the solidarity that comes with a common humanity. We can all get very united at the bottom, when we quit trying to prove we’re better than anyone else.
Richard Rohr, Living School Lecture
Success will teach us nothing past our mid 40’s. Most of our learning will come from failure, disappointment, grief.
Richard Rohr, Living School Lecture
The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines.
Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 289
The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself or less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.
Tim Keller