Philippians 2:5-11
5 Let the same
mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of
God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And
being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the
point of death— even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus
·
Palm Sunday holds an odd place
in the Christian calendar. It is a high point as well as a low point of the
story.
·
It’s a high point because it
tells of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the acclamation of the
crowds, the carpet of palms, and procession through the city gates. It seems
that all is going well for Jesus and his friends. We could imagine the
satisfaction felt by the disciples, who may have felt they and their movement
were receiving the recognition they deserved.
·
It’s a low point because we
know the entire story. We know of the coming betrayal, the arrest and trial. We
know of the scourging and the carrying of the cross. We know of the nails, the
crown of thorns, and the spear point that pierced his side.
·
We know these things where the
disciples did not. We might say that Jesus knew where all this was going.
Whether he knew the exact course of things or not is immaterial; no matter
what, he was going to be the servant of the will of the Father.
·
Paul put it this way: …
being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point
of death— even death on a cross.
·
We might watch this as we
would a movie or a show on the television. There is value in that, because we
need to know how our salvation was accomplished and what Jesus did. It would
even be inspiring and edifying to see what all this cost him.
·
However… simply to watch and
observe is less than enough for we are not spectators in this great story. That
would be easy and it would be at arm’s length from us.
·
The story is our story. The
story of Jesus is given to us in order that we might be part of it. If we know
of the salvation his death (and resurrection) brought to us, we are part of the
story. If we can see or even imagine what he went through and in that
understand what we mean to him, we are part of the story. The Gospel, the Good
News, was always meant to be our story.
·
This story takes place now and
our part of the story as it come to us and as it empowers and invigorates our
lives, our motivation becomes the same as Jesus’. He became obedient even to
death and death on a cross. He did this out of love for his Father and out of
love for us. Our role in this great story then has the same motivation – to
become obedient to the will of our Father out of the love the Spirit ignites
within us. More than that, we are to become as Jesus was and still is. To hear
and hold to the words of Paul about all that Jesus did in his life, in this
death, and in his resurrection, is the real way to follow Jesus and live our
lives in his way - Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus… so that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father.
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