"THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST"
Palm Sunday (Sunday of the Passion)
March 25, 2018
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
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. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV)
There is a certain tension of themes for this Sunday before Easter. It's a celebration of sorts, since we commemorate today the royal welcome that our Lord received as He entered the holy city, with people lining the streets to sing His praises and to lay down their coats as well as branches from the trees to carpet His path. But it's also a day of great solemnity, since we bear in mind that He went into Jerusalem that day with a particular agenda: to accomplish the salvation of sinners by bringing to completion His life of perfect obedience to the will and Law of God with His innocent suffering and death on the cross. Today marks the beginning of Holy Week, during which we commemorate the events that took the followers of Jesus on the biggest emotional rollercoaster that anyone has ever been on. In one week they would see their Lord, whom they loved with all their heart, hailed as King, betrayed by one of their own, arrested by the temple police, tried in both religious and civil courts, beaten and mocked by Jews and Gentiles alike, crucified and killed, hurriedly laid to rest in a borrowed grave, and finally raised from the dead. That's more trauma in one week than other people have to experience in an entire lifetime.
These events mark the very climax of the Gospel story: the sacrifice of atonement for human sin and the proclamation that, because God has accepted the sacrifice that His perfect Son offered to Him for the sin of the world, sinners are forgiven and reconciled to God. The theologians have a term for all of this--all of this that happened to Jesus and what God was doing in the midst of it all. That term is justification. This is the "meat" of Christian faith and doctrine--the very teaching on which the Christian Church stands or falls. In fact, every false teaching that exists is the result of a failure to properly understand this central truth. A correct understanding and appreciation of justification begins with a knowledge of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done. In the passage before us this morning the Holy Spirit gives us that knowledge through the inspired pen of Saint Paul.
In the opening words of this passage (which, incidentally, many scholars believe to be an early Christian hymn), the Lord Jesus Christ is described as being "in the form of God." As we consider during this week that we call "Holy" all of the indignities of body and soul to which Jesus was subjected, they become even more profound when we bear in mind that He is God. This is not just some unfortunate criminal suffering the excesses of Roman justice, nor is He just an innocent Victim of man's inhumanity to man. This is God Himself--the Creator and Preserver of heaven and earth and everything in them--who is suffering at the hands of the people He has created and continues to sustain. Without Him they are nothing and yet on Him they pour out their malice and violence. And we need to be careful about using the pronoun "they" when we talk about this disgusting episode. It is not "they" alone who have done this to their God; it is "we" who have treated our Lord and God so shamefully and continue to do so every time that we sin.
This God who suffers is the One who was "born in the likeness of men" and was "found in human form." Indeed, He could not suffer and die had He not become incarnate, since suffering and death are foreign to God. This God so identified with man (the crown of His creation) that He literally became One of us, taking on human flesh and blood when He was conceived in and born of the virgin Mary. He entered human history and participated in every aspect of our life, with the notable exception of sin. Because He became flesh and was truly human in every sense of the word, He was not shielded from the reality of the terrible things that He experienced. The hardships and sufferings that He endured during His lifetime on earth were real: the hunger and thirst, the shame and sadness, the pain and humiliation--all of it hurt Him every bit as much as it would have hurt any of us.
In the text Paul not only tells us who Jesus is but also what He did. And what He did was that He "made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant." What an irony this is, that in a world in which the lowliest people are urged to make something of themselves, the Lord of all makes Himself nothing--that in a world in which the goal is to be served, the Lord of all comes to serve all. And He serves not just the righteous and the holy, but common, ordinary sinners like you and me. He does it for a reason: to save us from our sin and its consequences--and in the process He sets an example for us to follow. As He said to His disciples after washing their feet on the night of His betrayal and arrest, "You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:13,14).
His service to sinners is marked by an obedience to God's will such as no one has ever seen or given before or since. The apostle writes: "He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross." This suffering Servant stood in our place when He perfectly obeyed the Law of God, and He stood in our place also when He endured the wrath of God against our sin on the cross at Calvary. Because of what Christ did and because we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, are baptized into His death and resurrection, His perfect obedience and His suffering and death for sin are credited to us. It is as if we had been perfectly obedient to the will of the Father--as if we had made the atoning sacrifice for sin. All of this is Christ's gift, given to us through faith.
I realize that we stand this morning at the threshold of Holy Week and Easter, but be that as it may, reflecting on the justification of sinners through the humiliation of Christ brings to mind for me a hymn verse that is usually associated with Christmas:
“He serves that I a lord may be;
A great exchange indeed!
Could Jesus' love do more for me
To help me in my need?”
(The Lutheran Hymnal, #105, stanza 7).
As we follow our Savior in spirit during this coming week, walking the way of the cross with Him, may our sad reflection on His suffering and death and our sin be met with the joy of forgiveness so that the One who humbled Himself for our sake may be glorified in our redemption.
Amen.
May the One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, making us kings and priests before His God and Father, lead you to a life of repentance and trust. May He also be glorified in the lives of you, His people. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.