Which is greater: all of creation or the Creator of creation? The latter, clearly, especially since our Creator is not an aloof deity, but a God who so loves us that he comes to live among us as the last and the least in Jesus Christ. No greater reality can be imagined than this God who makes himself the least in out midst. And once the Greatest unites himself to the least among us, out of love, it is in the poorest, last, and least among us that we encounter the greatest love in Jesus Christ.
God calls us to make an act of faith that is not merely doctrinal, but personal and existential. It seems counterintuitive to us that the greatest riches in Christ are offered to us when we renounce everything and embrace the poverty of the Gospel out of love. And yet, already Proverbs 30 calls us to the poverty of a faith that does not seek for any security beyond that which God’s Word offers us: “Every word of God is tested; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Add nothing to his words, lest he reprove you, and you will be exposed as a deceiver.” This is not poverty for poverty’s sake, but the poverty of letting God’s Providence guide us in both what we have and what we do not have. Christ sends the disciples to proclaim the Gospel with these instructions: “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic” (Luke 9). Let us seek no assurances beyond the greatest assurance of all: the Love of the Word who ensures all things for those who place their trust in Him.