March 24, 2002 -- SUNDAY OF THE PASSION -- Palm Sunday
Passion Sunday Philippians 2: 5-11
Title: “Christ’s obedient death and resurrection did it all.”
This passage seems to be an early Christian hymn, inserted at this point by Paul to reinforce his point made in verses one to five, be of the same mindset, the same love as that of Christ, putting the interests of others before one’s own. In “pouring himself out,” of his pre-existent divinity and “humbling himself to death on a cross,” Christ revealed the very character of God. In verse five, Paul sums it up by exhorting his fellow Christians to have the same “attitude,” or mindset or perspective or approach as Jesus, who was the first to show the character or “name,” of God in the life he lived. Then, by quoting the hymn, he portrays two ways of thinking, two attitudes or mindsets, one selfish, the other selfless. Christ, the pre-existent one, “emptied himself,” at a certain point in history and took on human form, indeed that of a “slave,” in order that humans can take on his nature, that of God.
In verse six, though he was in the form of God: The Greek word, morphe, translated as “form,” means that which truly characterizes a given reality. It is the essence or unchanging part of an entity. The verb, hyparchon, is not the common Greek verb for “being.” It describes the essence or the unchangeable, just as does morphe. Taken together the two words do not mean that Christ was “like God but really not.” Quite the contrary, the meaning is that Christ always was “in his very nature, God.”
Equality with God something to be grasped at: The nature, character and condition of divinity is the opposite of what humans might think. “Equality with God,” does not consist in grasping, clinging to, acquiring or possessing. It consists in “giving away,” not hoarding or collecting, “going out,” not turning in or self-absorption. Equality with God is something inherent to Christ in his pre-existence, his very nature.
Verse seven, rather, he emptied himself, equality with God is Christ’s nature and so is “emptying himself.” This phrase looks at the cross, the revelation of God’s true character, his outlandish, lavish love, fully manifested. Christ did not empty himself of anything. Rather, he emptied himself. He poured himself out. He did not thereby lose his divinity, he expressed it. As God he is not acquisitive, grasping, seizing, but self-giving for the sake of others.
Taking on the form of a slave: “Form,” Greek morphe, here means what it does above- the essential quality. He did not become just any sort of human being, but an obedient one, and to the nth degree. This is what divinity looks and acts like when divinity enters into humanity- a slave, a person without advantages, with no rights or privileges, but in service to all.
Found human in appearance: “Appearance,” translates the Greek schema, meaning the outward aspect which changes over time and according to circumstances. “Appearance,” then, would refer to things like the changing from baby to child to boy to youth to adult to old man. It pertains to the externals, what makes an entity recognizable. Christ entered our history and was as human, really more human, as us. Yet, he never ceased being divine. He was God living out a truly human life.
Verse eight, He humbled himself, in verse three, Paul recommended this quality to all Christians, a quality, making oneself “low,” not admired in the ancient world. Now, he shows us why it is so important. “Humility,” is the term for God’s exaltedness when it appears in human form.
Becoming obedient to death: This is unique. Jesus is like humans in most aspects, but unlike them in this one. This is another way of saying “a man like us in all things but sin.” See also Romans 8:3. What human can claim this? When divinity is coupled with humanity it yields obedience. It reveals why the incarnation was necessary. True obedience is always a free choice. Otherwise, it would be merely subservience. “Obedience unto death,” points to the degree to which Jesus’ free choice took him. He readily chose the path that led to his death.
Even death on a cross: This is the heart of Pauline theology: Jesus’ self-sacrifice, the divine scandal, the humiliating and cruel death, the awful and awesome truth of God’s love and the lengths he will go to express it.
In verses nine to eleven, Having quoted the verses referring to Christ’s humiliation, he now concludes with reference to his exaltation. Paul is always conscious of the “already,” and “not yet.” Already Christians have known the Lord, especially in their own suffering and humiliation. Not yet have they seen all things brought into subjection to him. If Christ was the subject of the first half verses six to eight, of this hymnal insertion, then God is the subject of the second. The first half stresses what Christ gave and why, the second half stresses what he received and why, really for the same reason as the first.
In verse nine, because of this: God says “yes,” to what Christ has done. If God says “yes,” to our lives then we are exalted. It stands to reason that the first one to be truly obedient would receive the same treatment.
Bestowed on him the name: “Name,” here means not so much appellation as “character,” not reputation so much as “status” or “standing; when you see the word name in the Bible think of nature.” This is the real exaltation. But is this name “Jesus,” or “Lord”? Both. The appellations may differ but the reality behind them is the same. Jesus is Lord. “Lord,” besides being the name for the Roman emperor, was the word used to refer to God, the equivalent of Yahweh.
Verse ten, every knee should bend: This and the next verse borrows from language in Isaiah 45:23: “before me, the Lord, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that in the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.” It is metaphorical language, common idioms for doing homage, not liturgical rubrics, to express obeisance to the Obedient One. It encompasses the whole creation, presumably at the Parousia, the “not yet”. The hymn’s scope has traversed from eternity past “in the form of God” through the present “coming in human likeness’ to the eternal future heaven…on earth…under the earth: “Heaven” refers to angelic and demonic beings; “earth,” to those alive now; “under the earth” to the dead..
Verse eleven, every tongue confess: at the Parousia even those who did not convert to Christ will have to acknowledge his Lordship. This will merely be acknowledgement, not conversion. Then it will be too late for that.
Jesus Christ is Lord: The human Jesus of Nazareth is both the Savior of the world and the God who created it. There is only one God, called by humans “Father,” when speaking of Creator- from whom and for whom are all things; called “Lord,” Jesus Christ when speaking of Savior- through whom all things were made and, after sin, were reconciled to God.
Sermon
Christ himself as both God and human is the ultimate model of self-sacrificing love. What starts out as God’s nature is to end up as humans’ nature too. Made in his image and likeness we are challenged to become just that by being rid of sin and selfishness. We cannot and could not do this on our own power. The indiscriminate use of and reliance upon our own power got us into the mess we are in. Only a power outside of us and beyond us can do it. And God did it in Christ who became human to rid us, “empty” us, of all inhuman qualities. In so doing we come to enjoy again that union with the divine nature. We know that what Jesus did was okay with God because he exalted him by means of the very humiliation humans inflicted upon him.
All this begins and ends in grace. Yet, a gospel of grace which omits obedience is truly “empty.” The emptying of Christ was a giving of himself. While in one sense one could speak of it as a deprivation, it is incomplete without the other side of its reality. Christ must empty somewhere. If he “empties,” into the human heart, that heart is filled with the love, which empowers obedience. The principle is love, the pattern is Christ, the power is the Spirit and the ultimate purpose is the glory of God. Christ’s obedient death and resurrection did it all.
His death accomplished our redemption and assured it. Yet, his death, which is really the culmination of his whole obedient life, is also the pattern for our present life, now fueled by his Spirit living within us. At one and the same time Christ reveals the pattern of God’s character and provides the pattern for the human character. This is what God is like, what he likes and what he would like us to be and become. We “imitate,” God as his images and likenesses by “imitating,” Christ. Or, as Paul put it in verse five, by letting that mind, attitude, mindset, be in us, which was and is in Jesus Christ.
This hymn, or portion of a hymn, sung at early Christian liturgies, says it all; just about as well as it can be said. The living out of this truth is the constant challenge of every Christian. Jesus has become the pattern for so many, winning their hearts not by “overlording,” not by power as such, but by example, by showing a love really irresistible. He revealed the nature of God as so different from what we might expect, not a self-absorbed God, jealous of his prerogatives, but an outgoing, pouring out God. It is so challenging and so intriguing to imitate this God, become so human in Jesus, that the pattern is not theoretical or speculative, but quite down-to-earth, practical and do-able . The great irony of God is that the lower he or we go or are willing to go, the higher we, too, rise.
The imitation of Christ begins in and with one’s attitudes, not in an unimaginative and rigid repetition of his actions centuries ago. It is more like rhyming than miming, being consonant with Christ. With his attitude of humility we are more open to fresh applications of his response to a variety of circumstances than the mere replication of exactly the same behavior. If we, like him, can concentrate on and give more weight to the good in others, while not denying nor minimizing the bad, we can rise above our own pettiness and think and behave in ways that contribute to the unity Christ came to give. If we adopt toward one another, in our mutual relations, the same attitude that was found in Christ Jesus, then our ultimate model for Christian behavior, our supreme example of the humble, self-sacrificing person will live in us and among us.
We can come to know the “nature,” of God by watching how Jesus Christ behaved.
Jesus Christ shows us by example what God is like, what he likes, what he would like us to be and become.
Jesus Christ also gives us the power to be and become what we could not otherwise be and become.
What looks like humiliation in the external form is really exaltation in the eternal realm. There is more to reality than what meets the physical eye.
Imitation: When we try to imitate another human being we study the person and, through practice, we repeat their actions, gestures, tone of voice, speech modulations, facial expressions, etc. It amounts to a studied attempt to pass for the real thing, the other person being “aped.” When we “imitate,” Christ it is very different. We are not interested in studying him like an actor doing “research” on his or her character. In fact, the power to “imitate,” Christ comes from Christ himself, not from us. He has given us the “pattern,” of his behavior by giving us his Spirit, his attitude, his fundamental character. This “pattern,” is a gift from him, not an achievement from us after much disciplined study and practice. Paul says, “Let that mind, attitude, be in you that was in Jesus Christ.” So, we “let,” it be, not make it be. Letting God be God or Christ be Christ means we give God permission to enter us and to rule our lives. Obedience is really “letting be.” It is not a dogged and unimaginative measuring up to external standards, but an interior growth of the very power and nature of God. All a person really does in the process is to say “Yes,” and not take it back. As long as the green light is on, God will keep going and growing in our hearts, empowering us to do the seemingly impossible and unimaginable, namely, become more and more like him. “Imitation,” then, is used in a very different sense that we normally use the term. It proceeds from God’s power within us and causes us to “empty,” ourselves of anything and everything inconsistent with that presence.
Letting be: Obedience is “letting be.” It turns out that that is just what God does. God lets all things be. He gives all things and people “permission,” to take up time and space. Without God’s “letting be,” nothing would be. Now, God does not necessarily approve of all he lets be. He lets sin be but does not approve of it. He tolerates it. He permits it, but does not like it. When we “let God be God,” in our lives we do not always like what we “let be.” Sometimes it can be quite unpleasant, even painful, even deadly. Jesus knows all about such experiences and yet, he let God be God always and in every circumstance. When he became one of us he did so out of a spirit of “letting be, “ not out of a spirit of “I have no choice in the matter.” The two can look very much alike when experienced on the earthly level, but are very different when seen in and from the light of eternity. “Obedience,” is not a matter of doing something one has no choice in. That’s compliance, but not really obedience. No doubt Jesus did a lot of things he did not like while on earth, but he never stopped letting God make his humanity more like God’s divinity.
Divinity vs. humanity: The fact that Christ was always God even before he became human and entered into Jesus of Nazareth at his conception did not make it an automatic conclusion that he would live a life of letting God be God, a life of obedience. As the Temptations scene, the Gethsemane scene, the crucifixion scene, and many other “scenes,” not written of, demonstrate, Jesus always had a choice. He always chose to be consistent with the God who was within him. There is no obedience without choice. However, the God within us, Christ, is not exactly our nature as it is in the case of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, we did receive as a gift that very nature at our conception, our Baptism. We draw on the same power Jesus did because we draw on Jesus within us. Though we will never become divine in the same way Christ is and always was, we will so unite with him, without losing our own unique identity, that his nature and ours will, “one eternal day,” become eternally inseparable. Thus, we will become like God, but not God. We will become what God likes us to be. We will obediently let him be God. Now God will always be God. We can prevent him from being our God, God for us, but not prevent him from being God in himself. Thus disobedience is our loss, loss of our humanity likeness to God, not God’s loss of his identity. Refusal to accept God on his terms as God means we will exist eternally outside of God, truly empty of God. Amen.
