The Quiet Ambitionಮಾದರಿ

“Make It Your Ambition”

Was Jesus ambitious?

Answering this question is not nearly so straightforward as it might seem. The Son of God is not easily cornered.

Where to begin? Commonly, we'll look to Jesus' "I AM" statements (the bread of life, the light of the world, etc.). Less often attended to, but perhaps more pertinent for our purposes, are Jesus' "I came" statements: his expressions of personal mission and aim. Which is to say, his ambition.

"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10), Jesus says. He tells the grumbling Pharisees, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:13). And again, laying it out plainly, "I came, not to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:47). To say that Jesus is ambitious is like saying the universe is pretty big: it understates the case by exponential orders of magnitude.

And yet, how is this ambition obtained? In Philippians 2, Paul paints a picture of downward mobility that takes your breath away: "[Christ Jesus], though he was in the

form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing" (Philippians 2:6-8).

This is almost an exact inversion of the “upward mobility” of the Tower of Babel. Rather than greedily grasping for security, Jesus generously surrenders divine equality. Instead of scaling the heights of heaven, he willingly descends into the depths. He passes ambitious humanity on the way down the ladder. It makes no earthly sense—quite literally.

And why does he do it? Jesus bottoms out to lift us up. So that we would not sink down eternally, Jesus was willingly swallowed by the quicksand, drowned in the flood.

But then a remarkable thing happens: "God 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 (Philippians 2:9-11).

God did not leave his Son to languish in the prison house of death. The Father vindicates Jesus' faithful obedience, his downward mobility, by raising him from the dead.

So was Jesus ambitious, or unambitious? We have to say that the answer is ... yes. He is the paragon of unambitious ambition.

What am I ambitious for? And how are my ambitions affirmed and challenged by those of my Savior?