Bible Text: Luke 14:1-11 | Preacher: Pastor Andrew Richard | Series: Trinity 2023 | “One Sabbath, when [Jesus] went in to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy.” Dropsy is an older word for the condition we call edema. The one who suffers from this condition stores water in the body in places water isn’t supposed to be stored: the feet, ankles, legs, hands, arms, sometimes the face or other parts of the body. When the body holds onto all this excess water the body parts become puffed up and swollen.
Now the somewhat ironic part about dropsy is that even though the dropsical person has these extra storehouses of water in his body, he still gets thirsty. In fact, he gets thirstier. The body doesn’t properly use the water that comes in, but stashes it, nor does it use the water it already has to quench the thirst, but always feels that it needs more―more water! And then the body proceeds to misuse that water. More water retained, more swelling, yet thirst increases as if the body weren’t waterlogged, more water, more swelling, more thirst, more, more, more, until the poor dropsical man is a bloated wretch and only becoming worse.
Our Lord could have cured any disease that evening at the Pharisaical supper. A blind man could have approached him, or people could have brought a paralytic. But Jesus saw fit to cure dropsy that evening, not just because the man was there and happened to have dropsy rather than some other ailment, but also because that physical ailment exactly illustrated the spiritual ailment that was reigning so freely at the dinner table.
The Pharisees looked in disgust at the dropsical man, despised him, and despised Jesus for having anything to do with him. And all the while the Pharisees were doing the exact same thing the dropsical man was, except instead of craving water, they were craving vainglory. What is vainglory? It’s a translation of the Greek word κενοδοξία, which could also be translated “empty opinion.” Vainglory is the empty opinion of men by which man tends to puff himself up and convince himself that he can ascend to the heavens.
Now certainly there is a difference between an honest compliment and deceptive flattery; men can say nice things to others and honor them for good or for ill. But the sinful flesh doesn’t make a distinction. It will take honest compliments and deceptive flattery, looks of awe and looks of envy, sincerity and sarcasm, and the sinful flesh will use it all to puff itself up. Jesus watches the hot air balloon race as the Pharisees seek to ascend higher than those around them, constantly taking in vainglory and constantly desiring more of it. And each Pharisee appears as nothing more than a blown bladder, or, as John Chrysostom put it, “a ridiculous child that is puffing out his cheeks.”
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” as it says in Proverbs 16. Even the ancient Greeks understood this. They told the story of Icarus, who flew too high with the wings his dad made him, the wax that held the feathers in place melted from getting too near the sun, and he plummeted to his death in the sea. Aesop told the fable of the frog, who saw the size of the massive ox and desired to be just as big, puffed itself up with air―bigger, bigger, bigger―then exploded. The desire to be higher infects man―and leads to his downfall.
But why does man desire to be high and exalted? The Lord formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Why doesn’t man recognize that he would be no better than the dirt he walks on were it not for a gracious God? Man seeks to be high because of the temptation of the devil. The devil himself grew proud and sought to outrank God. He is the first who exalted himself and was humbled, and he made up his mind to take the pinnacle of God’s creation down with him. Thus he approached man with hot air, with flattering words, with vainglory: “Ye shall be as gods.” Man spread his sails before this wind from hell, and since that devilish wind wasn’t enough to raise man on high, he constantly seeks more vainglory to carry him aloft, and he never has enough of it.
The world lives for this hot air. It lives in constant insecurity because its standing, its elevation, is tied to the changeable things of this world. For all its talk of self-esteem and self-actualization, the world knows it can’t manufacture glory for itself, but must get it from man, the most fickle being in the universe. The world is therefore incapable of love. It can only see other people as a means to a personal and selfish end. The world will confess and live according to stupid, inhuman, and unloving beliefs, simply because that’s where the praise is to be had. The world will avoid offending those who seem to have the most vainglory to offer, because it doesn’t want to miss out on any opportunity to get hot air and feel the delusion of floating a little higher. The world will always love hearing bad things about people instead of good, because the lower others are, the higher it will seem. The world will also profane the Sabbath, as the Pharisees did. God’s Word has no good thing to say about man’s prideful quest for self-deification, so the world ignores God’s Word, nor does the world give thanks to God for anything, as thanksgiving implies dependency and thus lowliness. This obsessive quest for vainglory leaves the world faithless, insecure, and spiteful.
Now Christians have the same sinful nature the world does. The world gives free reign to the flesh, whereas Christians resist the flesh by the Spirit of God. But―God help us―we still perversely understand the world’s reasoning, if it can even be called reasoning. You like feeling better than others. You like hearing bad things about other people and good things about yourself. You sometimes feel embarrassed or ashamed or worthless when you don’t get the approval you seek, which is an insult to the favor our heavenly Father has shown us in Christ. And to show just how bad this ailment is within our flesh: we know the world is wrong and Christ is right, yet the world has this uncanny ability to make even Christians feel low by withholding its praise. And our sinful nature can’t help but care about this! What? Would we puff ourselves up with the world’s stinking breath? Would we sit down at the head of the table and preside over the bloated and godless rabble and gain honor thereby? Would we believe the ancient lie that we can exalt ourselves to God, and then have Jesus come and put us to shame and move us to the lowest place?
No, let us start in the lowest place, which we most certainly deserve, and repent in the dust and cry out, “Wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death?” And Christ does not despise our place of dust. To that dust God stooped in the beginning to make us in his own image. And when we fell from the glorious height to which he had raised us, Jesus stooped again, this time taking on our dust, becoming man, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
And this exaltation of which we sing in Philippians 2 is not the exaltation of Christ alone. He became low so that he might lay hold of us who were low and steeped in sin and death, and by bearing our sins and dying our death raise us up in himself, passing through death and bringing us along with him, all the while saying, “Friend, move up higher,” until the Father seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. O height undeserved! The devil longs to attain this height into which Christ has brought his Christians. The world looks on in envy at the loftiness of God’s children and puffs its cheeks out even further and turns red in the face. And all the while the Church sings praises to Christ, “Though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly (Ps. 138). He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights (Ps. 18). He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure (Ps. 40).”
This loftiness to which Christ has raised us does not oppose humility, but promotes it as we reflect on God’s grace. We are low in ourselves. We are, objectively speaking, humble. The word humble comes from the Latin humus, which means the ground or dirt. That’s what we are. To be humble, or to humble oneself, is simply to acknowledge this truth of what we are. But then there’s what we’ve become in Christ. We are exalted dirt, dirt that bears God’s image, dirt that’s soaked with the blood of Jesus. And therefore our humility has a certain security and audaciousness that the world in its dropsy can scarcely fathom.
Consider the security we have in our humility because of Christ. We are seated with him in the heavenly places. What can the empty opinion of man do to change that? Can the opinion of man raise us? The height to which Christ has raised us knows no higher. Can the opinion of man bring us down and lower our standing? Certainly not, no more than it could humiliate Christ in his exaltation on the cross. We are secure. Jesus has told us, “Friend, move up higher,” and nothing in the world can say contrary. This means we’re free from having to esteem ourselves, we’re free from having to seek the approval of man. Certainly we should still encourage each other. In our weakness we value the encouragement of our brothers, not because we seek to elevate ourselves, but because we seek to be steadfast in the truth and stand together. But notice that if we don’t have to esteem ourselves, whatever that means, we’re free to love our neighbor for the neighbor’s sake and not our own. We can afford to hear and say good things about others without sacrificing an inch of our own worth and value in the eyes of God. We can afford to listen to the Word of God with an open ear, knowing that if God brings us low, he will also raise us up.
Consider also the audaciousness we have in our humility. Look at the dropsical man. I doubt he was invited to the supper at the Pharisee’s house, especially considering that he leaves after the healing. He came right in, uninvited, to approach his Lord, knowing that he himself was low, but that Jesus, his highness, wanted to be gracious to him. And in his daring humility he was not disappointed. Humility prays and expects to receive what it asks of Jesus. Humility ignores the proud who look on with disgust and makes its way to Jesus without being humiliated. Humility boldly confesses the truth of God’s Word and takes its stand on it and will never back down. Humility can be put on trial by the world and told to renounce Christ in exchange for the world’s favor, and this makes about as much sense to humility as trading eternal life for a devil’s fart. It’s like Polycarp of Smyrna standing before the multitude in the arena and being told to revile Christ and he would be set free. His reply shows just how ridiculous this prospect sounded to him, “For eighty six years I have served him and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”
So humility is secure; humility is daring; humility is bold. Humility says of Jesus, “He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken” (Ps. 62:6). And thus we pray:
Give me a humble spirit
To take the lowest place.
Lord, do not let me fear it;
Remind me of Thy grace.
I know Thou wilt embrace me
And down to me wilt bend
And rather than debase me,
Say, “Move up higher friend!”