Jesus “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.” He “emptied himself.” In a way that we can’t fully grasp, God chose to limit God’s own self, somehow setting aside divine might and majesty in order to save creation. As the Old English poet saw it:

The young hero stripped himself — he, God Almighty — strong and stout–minded. He mounted high gallows, bold before many, when he would loose mankind. (From a translation of the Anglo-Saxon “The Dream of the Rood” at http://faculty.uca.edu/~jona/texts/rood.htm.)