Mini blog: Why Jesus was so modest

Jesus' humility and modesty, especially in his attitude toward God, but also toward the poor, the sinners, the "common people" and even those who oppressed him, is a complicated topic, if examined in full. This is because all that Jesus did is a combination of his genuine attitude plus his setting an example for others. I want to give you one quick reason to keep in mind.

The more Jesus could have acted like a powerful man, totally of God and empowered by God, the more that people, in their weakness and human nature, would start to think that the bodily Jesus was "the full package" of God. People cannot help being very summarized in their thinking process. If Jesus were not modest and manifested more of God's power and characteristics, yet still remained in a human body, people would start to think that Jesus in body is an accurate and complete picture of what God in totality is like. And of course this is farthest from the truth beyond imagining because as God himself says in the Bible, his ways are far beyond human understanding. But if Jesus acted like God, and had not kept the division between him being the Son of Man and the overall totality of God himself clear to the people, the temptation of the people would have been to think of God as an all powerful guy who despite this, still gets hungry, gets irate with dummies, who needs to wash his feet dirtied from the road at night, etc. You know what I mean? This is why I am in agreement in spirit with Muslims who would not dream of trying to depict God pictorially. The mere act of drawing God would be to put human attributes and limitations (body size and shape, obviously) on the One God who does not have any of those limitations or features. God is too blinding a light "larger" than the physical universe to even be viewed at all. So Jesus would never have acted in a way that would set a tempting bad example where people think they can summarize God's entire existence in the bodily form of Jesus.

Hope this helps. Like I said, modesty is also Jesus' true nature (modesty plus total confidence in his authority) but I thought pointing out this pragmatic reason regarding his constant awareness of example setting and human mental weakness would help in more understanding.