A Kenotic Thought Experiment

A thought experiment:  if you are someone who holds the conviction, as I do,  that Jesus is the Son of God, the Risen Saviour of the world - the eternal foundation and embodiment of all truth, and the ultimate meaning of all existence - if you believe that, then try this.  Try imagining for a moment that Jesus was 'merely' a wonderful ethical teacher with a beautiful manifesto for social and personal transformation through the power of self-giving love.  Just live with that possibility for a few minutes.

Then ask yourself: if I knew the latter to be the whole truth, would I still follow Jesus?  Then add that thought-space, to your previously-held convictions about Jesus' divinity.

I just did this, in a manner of speaking, although I didn't intend to - it just happened while I was reading a book and thinking.  But the more I think about it, there is something powerful about it.  It was terrifying to temporarily lay aside my cosmic convictions, even for a moment.  But  I found when I took them back up again, having considered the sheer impact of this man's humanity - his very magnetism -   that the sacrifice only enriched my devotion to him as God.

Jesus said: 'For this reason that Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.  I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again'

St Paul riffed on this:

Christ Jesus, 

who though he was in the form of God
did not consider equality with God 
something to be exploited;
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave
And being found in human form
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death -
even death on a cross

Therefore God also exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.

The implications of this seem to me to be pretty game-changing.

Having tried the above, then perhaps extend this thinking to others around meet.  What if you were to momentarily lay aside your deeply held convictions about them, and simply love them for their humanity?  To see them as they are: a rebellious, tear-stained, blundering, beautiful child, just like me.

What then, if you were add that love to the deep and true conviction that each is none other than a rebellious, tear-stained, blundering, beautiful child of the Most High God?

Would you love them more, or less?