THE ADVENT HYMN TO CHRIST
The Advent season has come around again. What does it all mean? To the world in general and to us? For those in the marketplace of commerce, it’s a time of expectation of the cash till ringing, with everyone who can buying presents. For the man and woman in the street it’s a time for showing goodwill and generosity, generally to those they love and to indulge oneself in some luxury for a few days - and perhaps sparing a thought to the origin of the festival. Sadly, even this is rapidly fading as in these days of political correctness, for fear of giving offence to other faiths, the mention of Christ is actively discouraged. Many people have a hazy recollection of a cosy scene of a baby in a manger being admired by a young couple, with a few cows and sheep in the background.
This sterilised, sanitised, stain-glass picture is something of an illusion. It has no lasting effect on the world at large, which soon resumes its cynical way of life, self-centred and sinful. Why is this? It’s because the reality of the Christian message hasn’t been accepted for what it is - hope for the world in the coming of Christ. The Christians of the first generation knew better. Many of them would have known Jesus personally or knew someone who did. He wasn’t a remote historical figure to them. He was a physical person, not just someone they had read about. One of my boyhood memories is that of seeing Winston Churchill when he stopped off in Halifax for a few minutes in the 1945 General Election. He became a reality to me. I had actually seen the great man in the flesh! It makes all the difference if you’ve met a personality in the flesh rather than just read about them,
The Lord Jesus wants to become a real person in our consciousness this Advent time. He was born of refugee parents in an occupied country. He spent his first nights in an animal’s food trough. He grew up in an obscure village in a backwater of a vast empire. He had a brief ministry as a wandering preacher. He wrote nothing. He had a small band of followers, but all deserted him when he was unjustly executed as a common criminal. And yet, this man has affected the history of the world more than any other person. What is our perception of Jesus? I found it helpful to take the words of St Paul in Philippians 2 as a basis to learn more of the person and work of Jesus. They could well be an early Christian hymn that the apostle wrote or quoted (6-11), and I would like to make them our own Advent Hymn to Christ. It tells of him who came historically, who comes into the life of the Christian and will come to judge the peoples of the Earth as Christ the King.
The apostle urged his readers to turn their eyes upon Jesus (5). He had already established that he was their Saviour but Paul longed that Jesus should become their great Example to follow. "Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus" - this is the message of Advent. Jesus is first portrayed as:
THE ETERNAL SON
The apostle makes a stupendous claim for Jesus. He was someone, he says, "whom, being in the very nature God". Jesus was, and is, and always will be God. The words look back to our Lord’s preincarnate existence as the Second Person of the Trinity. He didn’t come into being at Bethlehem. He already was from all eternity. John begins his Gospel with a confirmation of this claim: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God … he was with God in the beginning" (1:1,2). Here we reach beyond time and matter. The concept is beyond human understanding. We can but join Paul in his doxology in praise of him: "the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever" (1 Tim 1:17).
But not only is Jesus by very nature God, he is God’s equal. He has all the attributes of God. He is the very revelation of God, but in Christ the invisible God becomes visible in Jesus. This is amazing, but there’s more to come. We’re told, he who was in the form of God "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped." What does this mean? It’s that Jesus who was equal with God didn’t hold it to himself. We can picture a selfish child with a toy who won’t share it: "It’s mine, it’s mine!" But Jesus wasn’t like that; he wants to give us his life, and he wants us to follow his example.
Some lowly task performed by an ordinary person would be passed by unnoticed but the same act done by, say, royalty, would attract attention. In fact, it would hit the headlines. The late Diana, Princess of Wales is remembered with affection for her visits to hospitals late at night to see and even hold AIDS patients and her work in drawing attention to the terrible injuries caused by landmines. Jesus did the highest possible service to mankind in coming to planet Earth. He didn’t let the unique dignity of his place in the Godhead - as the Eternal Son - stand in the way. But what was his by right was renounced as he chose to do the will of his Father in following his destiny in the incarnation and humiliation of the Cross. He shared the eternal glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and yet He humbled Himself, worked with His hands as a carpenter, was mocked, scorned and jeered at. This is the astounding position that is presented to us in the Gospels.
The Hymn to Christ goes on to describe what stems from this tremendous decision. It’s the matchless story of the amazing condescension and humility of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul describes how Jesus voluntarily stepped down from the throne to the Cross - the Eternal Son became:
THE EMPTIED SERVANT
We’re told that Jesus "emptied himself". The words must be understood in the sense that “he humbled himself”. This doesn’t mean that he ceased to be God, but that when he became man, he voluntarily laid aside his glory. There’s no suggestion of his laying aside his deity, but only laying aside the display of his deity. Think of it this way: he took off his royal robes and came amongst us as a man, but he was still the same royal person. Martin Luther speaks of the "divine incognito". There are stories in history when a king would disguise himself as an ordinary man to go amongst his subjects to see for himself the state of his kingdom but he was still king. This is only a faint image of what Jesus did. John Calvin said that “Christ could not divest himself of Godhead but he kept it concealed for a time … he laid aside his glory in the view of man.”
Our Lord gave up his heavenly riches for our sakes. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church: "He became poor, though being rich, in order that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9). So poor was he that he was constantly borrowing - a place for his birth (and what a place), a house to sleep in, a boat to preach from, an animal to ride on, a room where he could meet privately with his friends, and finally a tomb to be buried in. Yes, "he emptied himself".
Terry Waite, who was a hostage in Lebanon for five long years, tells in his autobiography, how for month after month he was kept chained hand and foot. Most of his clothes were taken from him, his shoes and even his watch. For hours at a time he could only curl up as a baby and he says he felt just as helpless. As Christmas time came round he thought, "Well, that’s how Jesus must have been - utterly vulnerable and dependent on others. He had left the presence of his Father, left the glories of heaven to take on human form, as a helpless baby."
This whole amazing event - this stupendous self-emptying by God - was a rescue operation motivated by unspeakable love. Love so great that it broke through the barriers of space and time. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The context of Paul’s Hymn to Christ is a word of caution to some people in the church at Philippi. There were some status seekers - people who clung on their pride of position, some assumed dignity or false prestige. The human instinct is to pull rank on others, to be recognised. But what is our dignity compared with the dignity of Jesus? That’s the point that Paul is making. For the sake of the incarnation he didn’t come in all the paraphernalia of deity. He made himself nothing. In this sense he literally emptied himself. It was the ultimate act of self-denial. Sadly, for many, Christmas is “self-filling”, the opposite of “self-denial”, when the God of Jesus Christ is traded for the “god” of consumption.
The apostle is even more specific in describing Christ’s stepping down from glory: it amounted to "taking the form of a servant". It was Jesus who said "I am among you as one who serves" (Luke 22:27), fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy of the Servant of Jehovah. The scene of the Last Supper depicts our Lord acting out his role of a servant as he took a towel and washed the disciples’ feet. To be a servant, a slave in the ancient world, was to be a dependant, one obliged to obey. But Jesus had to become the servant if he was to become our Saviour. He fulfilled Isaiah’s prediction: a servant who would suffer, who would be despised and rejected of men (Isa 52-53).
In order to accomplish this servant role Paul declares that Jesus was "born in the likeness of men". This makes clear that Jesus, in addition to his divine nature, took to himself human nature as well. There can be no doubt from the record of the life of Jesus that he was really a human being. He had grown up through child and boyhood as a member of an ordinary Jewish family with brothers and sisters. He had the usual physical needs and emotional characteristics of a man. We read how be became hungry and thirsty, he became weary and required sleep. His way of dress and customs were those of his contemporaries. And yet at the same time he was God and man. The Christmas carol sums it up well: "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see! Hail the incarnate deity."
"And being found in human form" writes the apostle of our Saviour, "he humbled himself". His whole life upon Earth was in devotion to the will of his Father and the acceptance of our human lot. He was born in little Bethlehem in the humblest of surroundings and he lived in despised Nazareth. Yet he never rebelled against the limitations of his situation, never showed resentment towards his lowly circumstances. What an example to us if we get irritated at things that go against the grain!
The depths of Christ’s humiliation had yet to be plumbed, for the Hymn states that he "became obedient unto death". This was the very depth of his humiliation. The fact that he was obedient unto death is a sure indication of his deity. Just think about it: only divine beings can accept death as obedience. For ordinary men and women death is a necessity. Our own choice doesn’t come into it. We may try to put it off but "Father time bears all his sons away." But Jesus alone could chose death as his destiny and he did so because of his love for us. He was no passive victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Our Saviour’s obedience is shown by the Hymn to be to the uttermost extent: "even death on a Cross". Right from the time of his birth, behind the crib was the Cross. This was the most degrading and shameful death known. To a Jew this form of death was particularly abhorrent as the Law of Moses cursed it. He bore the full curse of God for our sins. His spiritual agony was so intense that he cried out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When he was born in Bethlehem the night sky was lit up by the glory of the angelic host, but when he died on the Cross, a great darkness covered Calvary (Mark 15:33,34).
Christ’s humiliation has been summarised in some memorable words: "Christ’s self-emptying was not a single act or bereavement, but a growing poorer and poorer, until at last nothing was left to him but a piece of ground when he could weep, and a Cross where he could die." (Abraham Kuyper). Yes, this was "the mind of Christ" that Paul asks us to have - that mind determined to follow his Father’s will and for the sake of sinners, was willing to hold nothing back. We’ve seen what Christ is, the Eternal Son, and what he became, the Emptied Servant, but the Hymn doesn’t end there. It goes on to relate that Jesus is now:
THE EXALTED LORD
The glory of the Christian message is that Jesus, having come right down, God raised him up. The Hymn to Christ turns to describe the glorious exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ. It tells of the reward that God gave him: "therefore God has highly exalted him". God can only use the humble. God’s way is down first and then up. Jesus willingly went through a severe reduction programme before his Father could exalt him. This is the way that the Christian worker must follow his Master. God’s dealings with us are not always easy to understand, but he knows what he is doing.
Paul tells his readers that the honour bestowed on Christ is "the name that is above every name". The honour that he refused to take for himself is now graciously bestowed on him by his Father. Every year the Queen of England, in her Birthday and New Year Honours Lists gives honours to some of her subjects who have performed great service to their country. The higher the honour, the fewer there are given. There may be hundreds of MBEs but only a handful of knighthoods. Here we are told that the highest possible honour has been given to our Saviour for doing what no one else could do - to remove the obstacle between God and man brought about by sin, and restore mankind to fellowship through his atoning death.
The Hymn to Christ discloses the purpose of his exaltation. It’s in order that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow". Every Christian humbly and adoringly bows now, but one day even his enemies will bow in recognition to who he is. Every created intelligence will have to acclaim him, whether "in heaven, and on earth and under the earth". Angels and redeemed human beings will do this joyfully; the devil and his followers will do it with remorse, but so great will be his glory that all will feel impelled to render homage to him.
Paul now arrives at the climax of the Hymn. He discloses the name that is above every other name: "Every tongue shall confess to the glory of God the Father that Jesus Christ is Lord". This universal acclamation is the confession that forms the earliest Christian creed, "Jesus Christ is Lord". Jesus is identified and crowned as Lord of all. The day is coming when he will be given his due. He will be recognised as the one who he really is, when the obscurity of the past and the invisibility of the present will be completely removed and every eye will see him for what he is in all his glory.
Yes, Jesus is Lord, but there’s a question each one of us must ask ourselves: "Is he my Lord?" Jesus wants to give us the integrity, the courage, the honesty to live right. He wants to take away our selfishness and give us love. He wants to take away our hypocrisy, our bitterness and hurts - and give us his peace. Advent celebrates God as the Coming One. We know from history that he came, but also that he will come again, this time in great glory. The New Testament writers urge watchfulness. Let’s make sure that we give Jesus the rightful place in our hearts this Christmas: the Eternal Son who became the Emptied Servant, but now is the Exalted Lord. These three images that Paul has portrayed in his Advent Hymn points us to Christ the King! It is this Jesus whom we worship and adore.
Share with me in an Advent Prayer:
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time of Advent. We look forward to Christmas and to celebrating Christ’s birth. As we prepare to celebrate your coming in Jesus Christ we think with shame of our unworthiness. We confess that we’re not ready to receive your Son. We’ve been proud when we should have been humble, and thought ourselves mighty when we were weak. We ask you to forgive us, Lord, for all our sins, especially our pride, our wrong actions and attitude of mind. Help us to be more honest with ourselves and more loving to our fellow men and women. Help us to live our lives in the prospect of the coming again of Jesus as king and judge.
Amid all our festivities help us to pause and hear again the story of Christmas. Help us to celebrate not with sentiment and false cheer, but with true joy and hope. Fill us with your peace and help us to share the message of your coming to those around us.
