THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT
March 21, 2004
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
The Rev. M. Anthony Seel , Jr.
Philippians 2:1-13
“Created to Become Like Christ”
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence. May your Word be our rule, Your Spirit our teacher, and your greater glory our supreme concern, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
If you follow a small gravel road until you see a small white church, you’re almost there. On the far side of the church is a hand-painted sign that says “Daffodil Garden.” Take the path past the sign and the sight might just take your breath away. It’s as if someone took a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and slopes.
The flowers are planted in majestic swirling patterns – great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron and butter yellow. Each different colored variety was planted as a group so that it circled and flowed like a river with its own unique hue. There are five acres of flowers.
On the porch of a well-kept A-frame house is a poster. “Answers to Questions I Know You Are Asking” is the headline. The first answer is 50,000 bulbs. The second is “One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet and very little brain.” The third answer is “Begun in 1958.”
One woman planted 50,000 bulbs one at a time over nearly fifty years of time. Year after year, she kept planting bulbs until she had created five acres of ineffable magnificence, beauty and inspiration. One bulb at a time. Year after year. Call it the Daffodil Principle. What might we be able to accomplish if we worked at something consistently over fifty years of our lives?
In our second reading, the Apostle Paul writes about the pre-existence, life and death of Jesus Christ. He shows how Jesus plunged into the soil of humanity and became like us. His mission was to give away His life for others. He helped many bloom and grow, and then He died on the cross. After this, He was exalted by God and given a name above all other names. Paul’s point is found in verse 5: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Let’s begin at verse 1.
vv. 1-2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
The Christians at Philippi were facing significant opposition during the last half of the first century, so the Apostle Paul writes to them to challenge them to stay firm in their faith. He begins chapter two of Philippians with some words of support. Some scholars believe that this epistle dates from 60-62 AD, the last days of Paul’s life, when Paul was under house arrest in Rome. These verses describe how a Christian is to live in the world.
In the face of the opposition that the Philippians face, Paul writes about “encouragement in Christ.” J.B. Lightfoot translates these first words of chapter 2 as “If then your experiences in Christ appeal to you with any force.” The idea here is that there is a power in your life in Christ that persuades you that the Christian faith is worth holding onto, even or especially in times of crisis.
“Any comfort in love,” points to the love of Christ, and “participation in the Spirit” to the power of God that binds Christians into one united fellowship. The “affection and sympathy” referred to here is the tenderness and compassion of Christ for His followers.
All this is intended by God to contribute to the church being of “the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” The power of God in the community of God’s people brings unity. I like what Rick Warren has to say about Christian unity on day 21 of The Purpose Driven Life. Warren writes
Unity is so important that the New Testament gives more
attention to it than to either heaven or hell. God deeply
desires that we experience oneness and harmony with
each other.
He continues
Unity is the soul of fellowship. Destroy it, and you rip
the heart out of Christ’s Body. It is the essence, the
core, of how God intends for us to experience life
together in his church. Our supreme model for unity
is the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are
completely unified as one. God himself is the
highest example of sacrificial love, humble other-
centeredness, and perfect harmony. [p. 160]
Warren’s words are a perfect lead-in for verses 3 and 4, where Paul says
vv. 3-4 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Rivalry is about individuals seeking to advance themselves ahead of others. Instead of selfish ambition, Paul preaches humility. As Warren says on Day 23,
Thinking of others is the heart of Christlikeness and the
best evidence of spiritual growth. This kind of thinking
is unnatural, counter-cultural, rare, and difficult. [p. 183]
Look at the so-called reality shows on television. The premise of most of them is that you participate on a team whose purpose is to eliminate members of the other team until you get to the point that it is every man or woman for themselves. None of the teamwork is real teamwork. The whole motivation is to advance yourself. The Christian way is counter-cultural, and it is fully based in the example of our Lord, as Paul mentions next.
vv. 5-7 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
In Philippians 5-11, we have what might be one of the oldest reflections available about Jesus Christ. Paul incorporates what could be an ancient Christian hymn into his letter to the church at Philippi.
Yesterday, we moved into Purpose #3 of the 40 Days of Purpose: “You Were Created to Become Like Christ.” Warren begins yesterday’s reading, saying
You were created to become like Christ.
From the very beginning, God’s plan has been to make
you like his Son, Jesus. This is your destiny and the
third purpose for you life. [p. 171]
Paul is saying that Christian humility is rooted in the example of Jesus Christ who though He was God became a human being. Jesus willing took on the form of a servant; He willing condescends to take on human flesh. Both statements are intended to tell us that the divine Christ became fully human. More than this, Paul continues
vv. 8-11 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Verse 7 says that Jesus Christ “made himself nothing,” and verse 8 that “he humbled himself.” In both places, the thought is that Jesus voluntarily does what is sacrificial for Him but absolutely necessary for us. He was obedient to God’s will even to death, and His death results in His exaltation.
The obedient Christ is exalted by God so that the human name “Jesus” reveals the One who had dominion over all. Because of His supreme act of divine self-denial at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.
Paul concludes this section of his epistle, saying
vv. 12-13 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
In all humility and in constant and full dependence on God, we are to work out our salvation. Hear once more the words of Rick Warren:
God’s ultimate goal for your life on earth is not
comfort, but character development. He wants you
to grow up spiritually and become like Christ.
Becoming like Christ does not mean losing your
personality or becoming a mindless clone. God
created your uniqueness, so he certainly doesn’t
want to destroy it. Christlikeness is all about
transforming your character, not your personality.
[p. 173]
Warren says later that “becoming like Christ is a long, slow process of growth.” This leads me back to the Daffodil Principle. A woman living along a gravel road near a church, down a little path, spent her life creating something beautiful. In her case, it took several decades, 50,000 daffodil bulbs and the work of her hands and feet.
Don’t you think that there were mornings when she would have liked to have slept in? You think that her back didn’t ache at the end of the day? Do you think her knees didn’t hurt when she knelt in the rocky soil? You think that she never thought about quitting? But she didn’t quit and the impact of her efforts has inspired countless people who have wandered upon her garden to go out and do likewise. Maybe they head out and plant their own daffodil bulbs. Or maybe they cultivate some other project with the capacity to bloom and flourish.
This unknown woman changed the world where she lived. The principle that her daffodil garden teaches is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time, often just one baby-step at a time – and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find that we can accomplish magnificent things.
After seeing the spectacular daffodil garden one woman remarked, “It makes me sad in a way. What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal 35 or 40 years ago and had worked on it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!”
Her daughter responded, “Start tomorrow.” The mother said, “I’ll start today.”
In what are you willing to invest the rest of your life? I believe with all my heart that God’s greatest desire for you is that you become more like His Son. The more that your character is conformed to Christ, the closer you will be to the person that God created you to be.
I urge you to commit yourself today to the lifelong goal of becoming more like Christ. Throughout this next week, as you read each daily chapter you will find good ways to grow in Christlikeness. We were created by God to become like His Son. Start today. Or renew your commitment today to grow in the likeness of your Lord. This is what you were created for.
Let us pray.
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; in whose Name we pray.
Amen.
