In those travel-logs that sometimes pop up in magazines, there’s always one lucky person spruiking the joys of an upgrade, whether to a better hotel room, or seat on a plane, or type of car. In all my travels, the closest I’ve ever come is to score one of those extra legroom deals, in exchange for keeping cool when the plane plummets to the earth, and promising on impact to calmly open the door and direct passengers out of the burning wreckage.

But who has ever heard of a downgrade? And who in the history of the world has ever asked for one? “Thank you for the penthouse suite, my good man, but I would really like a small, single, windowless room in a leaking basement, with a roll-away bed.” Or “I’d like to exchange my booking for the F1 McLaren to a little worn-out family hatch with windup windows and no power-steering.” Who would ever do that?!

But someone did. And in a voluntary way. More than that, in a cheerful way. It’s hard to describe the descent from a starlit chamber to an animal manger, or from a court of angel choirs to the gawking of rough shepherds. But that’s what he asked for. Our Lord Jesus, ‘who, being in very nature God… made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant… he humbled himself and became obedient… even to death on a cross!’ And that’s why he’s now been upgraded to the highest place.