Good morning and welcome to the June 13th Musing.

“Here, put on these jerseys I borrowed.…”

Speaking of basketball…

Where is a basketball player’s favorite place to eat?

Dunkin’ Donuts.

Why did Cinderella fail at basketball?

Because she ran away from the ball

Why can’t basketball players go on vacation?

They aren’t allowed to travel.

…

We had not been long off the team bus when word began to spread that there was a problem.   We had arrived at the freshman basketball tournament, having been told by Coach to pack our white uniforms.  Turns out, the team that we were scheduled to play, brought, and were warming up in, their whites.   Coach had made a colossal mistake.  Rumor of our having to forfeit the game was beginning to spread.    My 14-year-old mind could not contemplate anything worse.

Coach disappeared leaving us to grumble among ourselves.   After a bit, he returned with an armful of sweaty purple jerseys.    I now had something worse to contemplate.   I was wide eyed, just as you are now in reading this.   The idea of wearing purple jerseys, from a team that had just played in the tourney, with our white shorts trimmed in red, was so… unthinkable.     The further thought of putting on the sweaty, smelly garment of another, was taking my early teenage experiences to a new level of gross.

I slowly and hesitantly put on the wet, stinking, and now cold jersey under duress.   What else could I and my teammates do?  

…

Interesting story Rod, but what is the point?

The point is this.    In those borrowed, perspiration-drenched jerseys, we put on the muck sweat of fellow humanity.  

After letting that set in a moment, now imagine putting on humanity itself.

We are so used to humanity, that that doesn’t sound like too big of a deal.

But imagine if you stepped down from perfection to do so.   

Try to imagine leaving the heavenly realm to be born among animals, leaving behind receiving the worship of angels and creation to gird yourself with a towel to perform one of the lowest human tasks.  

Try to imagine putting on flesh, and then spending 33 sinless years living among the sin-filled stench of humanity, then allowing yourself to be executed by the very ones you had created, dying as if you had committed every sin of every human who would ever believe in you.

Yes, Perfection put on a humanity-soaked jersey…

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9 (NASB95)

And he did it willingly…

…Christ Jesus,
who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:5–8 (NASB95)

That wintery day so many years ago, we involuntarily put on jerseys that we did not want to wear, so that we could have the opportunity to try to win a basketball game.

Two thousand years ago, Christ voluntarily put on flesh, so He could redeem a people for Himself, to the glory of the Father.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
1 Peter 3:18 (NASB95)

Yes, 

…the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14

Praise Jesus Christ that He was willing to put on flesh, and live among the gross.

Rod

S.D.G. – 13