Reflection: The Son of Man
If you captured something of the capacious character and love of Jesus yesterday, you’re in for a treat today. Because today’s title is not what others used for Jesus. This is his favoured name for himself, and in the four gospels he uses it about 80 times!
I imagine the home fires burning in an ordinary village home. Everyday routine. The night gathers in and the men down their carpentry tools. While dinner’s on the boil, an oil lamp is lit, a mat unrolled. Extended family members, young and old, kneel, lean, stretch; pass around the bowl-and-towel. The day is rehearsed. (We know they were devout, but were they storytellers? Debaters? Romantics? Creatives?) Stories and jokes, politics, history, Scripture, prayers, prophecies … “Tell the one about the prophet Daniel’s vision!” pipes up young Jesus.
You mean the one where a man appears in the clouds?
Out of the heavens someone like a son of man appears. He’s presented before the Ancient of Days who gives him divine authority, glory and a kingdom, so that every culture, nation, and language might serve him. He’ll have everlasting dominion, and his kingdom will never be destroyed. (paraphrase of Daniel 7:13-14).
Ah-ha! At what age did Jesus recognise himself and his mission in Scripture? God’s rule in human hands. He probably treasured it in his heart a bit like his mother was prone to do with mystery. Son of Man. A name pregnant with the prophetic past, with his bodily present and about a glorious future. As Jesus matures into this divinely-human role, watch as he embraces his title, incarnating power through humility, service, suffering, and self-giving love.
Prayer:
We ditched the baton to take care of your world with holy dignity. Mankind just dropped it and ran the other way. But for your costly intervention, True Man, we’d still be running the wrong way, lost in sin. Thank you! Thank you for that rescue. Thank you for the privilege and power to live holy and dignified lives under your sovereign rule. We’re keeping our eyes fixed on those clouds where once again, you, Son of Man, will return. (Matthew 24:30,44)