I’ve realised lately that I’m not as good at basketball as I thought I was. This is a pattern that plays out in many areas of life. I think of my fitness levels as if I’m still in my 20s – not as I am, in my 50s. My 50s is a completely different version of myself than my 20s version. So, when my son challenges me to a game of basketball, my self-perception needs to catch up with reality.

Jesus has the same type of challenge for us. Jesus lovingly wants to challenge our self-perception. In Luke 14, he has been invited to eat at the house of a prominent leader. While he was there, he noticed that people were working hard to be seated in the places of honour. Our equivalent might be trying to secure a seat on the bridal table at a wedding reception. When Jesus noticed this scrambling for the places of honour he told them this parable.

“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.

“But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honoured in the presence of all the other guests.”

At first, this looks like helpful dinner party advice. But Jesus has something much more important to say. In his kingdom the way up is to firstly go down. Jesus shows us a radically different path of honour. Honour is not about status, control, or self-promotion. It’s about surrender, humility and trust.

We can come to God, thinking we deserve his love. We can list off all the reasons that God should want to be friends with me and why we should have a place of honour. If that is our attitude, we won’t find a place in his kingdom. The way up is to firstly go down.

In fact, this is exactly what Jesus did. He took the humblest of places. He left heaven and was born into poverty. He willingly took death on the cross, the most despised way to die in the Roman world. And beyond his physical death, Jesus took on all our shame and moral filth. He took it on and wore it as his own. It took him to the depths of hell. You can’t get any lower than that, but he willingly goes there.

And then… the great reversal.

Through his resurrection, Jesus is lifted to his throne in heaven. You cannot get any more glorious than that. What is even more amazing is that he invites us to share in his glory.

And how can we enter that glory? Just as Jesus showed, the way up is firstly to go down in humble repentance and faith.