God didn’t put angels in charge of this business of salvation that we’re dealing with here. It says in Scripture,

What is man and woman that you bother with them;
    why take a second look their way?
You made them not quite as high as angels,
    bright with Eden’s dawn light;
Then you put them in charge
    of your entire handcrafted world.

When God put them in charge of everything, nothing was excluded. But we don’t see it yet, don’t see everything under human jurisdiction. What we do see is Jesus, made “not quite as high as angels,” and then, through the experience of death, crowned so much higher than any angel, with a glory “bright with Eden’s dawn light.” In that death, by God’s grace, he fully experienced death in every person’s place. (The Message).

Note the order. Here we have God, then the angels, then man ‘at number three in the charts’ (as someone put it). What staggering humility that God, the Son, should stoop so low: becoming, for a time, even lower than the angels He Himself created. But now the great reversal has occurred, and Jesus is in His rightful place above the angels.

But He humbled Himself for our sakes.

Furthermore, our Lord set this pattern of ‘downward mobility’ for all His followers to note and pursue (see John 13:1-17; Phil.2:1-11). He shows us ‘God’s law of gravity’ that ‘what goes down must come up.’

All of you, clothe yourselves with humility towards one another, because,

‘God opposes the proud
    but shows favour to the humble.’

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. (1 Peter 5:5b,6).

PRAYER: Lord God, may I be content to take the lowest seat at the table, and trust you to say ‘Come up higher’ in your way and time.