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Printer Friendly VersionMy wife and I lived in Pasadena, California for almost six years
while I was finishing seminary and graduate school. When our first son, Caleb
was born we decided to buy a small house. We found a wonderful little house
in Pasadena just one block off the Rose Bowl Parade route. It quickly became
our New Year’s tradition to invite family and friends to stay with us
and just walk out our front door on New Year’s Day and join our neighbors
(who had several years before pitched in together and purchased a small set
of stands which they reserved for the neighborhood) to watch the greatest
and most famous parade of them all. In Caleb’s short life, his only parade
experience was the “Granddaddy of them all.”
Then we moved to Oklahoma City so that I could begin teaching
at Southern Nazarene University. Our first couple of years at SNU we lived
in a house on one corner of the campus. As part of the annual Homecoming celebration
the student body sponsors the “Homecoming Parade” – which essentially
is comprised of one pick-up truck for each of the under-classes “decorated”
with poster board and crepe paper, and a borrowed convertible upon which the
Homecoming King and Queen ride. The highlight of the parade is that each of
the class “floats” (and I use the term loosely) throws candy at
the kids along the route.
We got the family ready and ran out onto our front lawn to await
the Homecoming parade. Sure enough, around the corner came the eight-piece
pep band leading the convertible and four candy-tossing floats. It took exactly
forty-five seconds for the parade to come and go. As the ceremony headed off
into the distance, Caleb looked up at me and said, “Dad, that was the
worst parade I’ve ever seen.”
Truer words were never spoken. In just five short years of life
Caleb had witnessed the world’s greatest and worst parades. Today we
gather to remember another of history’s humblest parades.
The text before us today is often termed by biblical theologians
the “kenosis” (Greek word meaning emptying) hymn. What an interesting
lectionary selection for Palm Passion Sunday. What should we do with a text
about the self-emptying nature of Christ on a Sunday usually oriented toward
the exaltation of Jesus as “Hosanna”?
There are some New Testament scholars who argue that we have
the wrong idea about the “triumphant entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem.
Some believe that there wasn’t much of a regal nature to Christ’s
procession at all. In a city that was used to conquering heroes parading in
triumph riding chariots and horses, encircled with throngs of cheering people,
leading hordes of conquered enemies, and being celebrated with garlands and
fragrant offerings, a carpenter on a donkey being praised by a small band
of followers isn’t likely to show up on the front page of the Jerusalem
News. In the history of great political parades, the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem
rates pretty low.
Even in its humility the Palm Sunday parade is significant for
believers because it reminds us of what the creator of all things looks like.
As Rodney Clapp has written,
We take note that the Savior rides an ass rather than a warhorse,
and we realize he is about to submit himself to imperial violence rather than
wreak revolutionary violence… Palm Sunday says Jesus will save us indeed,
but his way of saving us will turn our dreams and desires inside out. This
is not salvation on our terms… Thus we transform the triumphal entry
as we reenact it, and it transforms us… It rehearses us in a parade by
which we can judge all other parades.
Beyond its humility, the irony of the entry into Jerusalem is
that a few days later the one who is proclaimed with “Hosannas”
will be exchanged for a murderer. This one who is lauded as the “Son
of David” today, will soon be hanging between two common thieves.
This is the mystery Paul is pointing to in this Philippian hymn. Caesar – who for only a few short years will have control over a portion of land that ultimately will belong to someone else – is exalted as a god. While the very one “through whom and by whom all things were made” heads for the humiliation of not only death, but the cruel, insidious, shameful death on a cross.
A pastor friend once told me that the best and worst part of
the church is the same thing: the people. When we come together as a community
– even in the church – conflict often ensues because each of us
are basically selfish and desire for things to go our own way. Paul is often
convinced that our minds are too often set on things the New Testament refers
to as earthly, carnal, or “things below.” What we need in order
to achieve unity as a community is a common mindset.
For this reason, Paul prefaces this great kenosis hymn with
the phrase, “Let the same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”
The basic problem in the church is that Christians fail to have the mind of
Christ.
God’s answer to this problem was to demonstrate in Christ
what the proper mindset is for those who reflect the image of God. Jesus had
everything to grasp because he found himself in equality with God. Instead
he gave that up in order to become flesh and dwell among us. However, he not
only became human but in his humanness he modeled the very nature of a servant.
On Maundy Thursday the church traditionally remembers Jesus washing the feet
of the disciples. In this amazing act of servanthood Jesus demonstrated humility
in action.
Beyond his humble life, Jesus became obedient to the Father
even to the point of death on a cross. The manner in which Jesus confronted
the brutality and ugliness of his accusers and executioners with quiet grace
and uncompromising mercy embodies the very essence of self-emptying love.
Therefore God exalted him. It is critical to the theology of
this hymn to understand that it is because Jesus demonstrated a life of servanthood
that he was exalted by God. Christ is exalted by the Father because in demonstrating
kenosis love he is in the very nature of God. Ultimately every knee shall
bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord because in his life and death Jesus
demonstrated the very essence of the self-emptying love of God the Father
who will not give up on his creation.
This same point is dramatically made by John the Revelator in
the fifth chapter of Revelation. In his vision of the heavenly throne room,
John begins to weep because there is no one who has been found worthy in all
the host of heaven to open the scroll of history. Then one of the elders encourages
him to not cry for the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” has conquered
and is worthy to open the scroll.
In one of the great twists in all of scripture, the expected
lion of the tribe of Judah turns out to be “a Lamb standing as if it
had been slaughtered.” The final authority in all of history is the lion
– who is the Lamb. In other words, at the center of all things is the
great image of the self-giving love of God that is the slain Lamb.
This is the great mystery Paul is celebrating in this hymn: Christ is exalted
because although he had all things to be grasped he emptied himself and became
nothing. It is exactly in this action that he reveals himself in the very
nature of God.
Our response is to allow the Spirit of God to form the same
mind in us that was in Christ Jesus. This is not easy. As theologian Clark
Pinnock often remarks, Christians usually reflect the God they believe in.
Many of us act judgmentally and harshly toward those we consider “outsiders”
because we believe that this is also the way God acts towards his enemies.
Yet now because we have seen the grace and love of Christ extended to the
brutalizing sinners who crucified him, we know that God acts differently toward
those who do not know him. He acts in self-giving love.
Since this is the case, we must first confess that we struggle
with the kenosis idea of God. In our secret heart we desire a God who will
destroy our enemies not die on their behalf. We would prefer a God who would
enact violence against our oppressors, not redeem oppressors by dying in such
a way that he exposes their sin. Like the disciples, we are waiting for a
power that will put us at the right and the left. It is no wonder that we
have a hard time allowing Jesus to get down and wash our feet.
If Paul is right, the reason we struggle with the image of Christ
as servant is because if he has humbled himself he expects his disciples to
do the same. Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus meant when he called us to
take up our cross and follow him. In the same way that he gave his life in
order to overcome evil with good we are to find that in the mystery of the
Kingdom of God that truly the last are first, and the leaders are the servants
of all.
The entire celebration of Lent has been about looking at Jesus
as revealed upon the cross, looking at ourselves, and then confessing the
difference. That is once again where we find ourselves in this text. Paul
wants us to look at Jesus – the one who had all power, might, and authority
to grasp – who chose instead to become the humbled and even humiliated
servant, and then look carefully at the selfishness of our own life, and confess
the vast difference.
Far too often our theology calls us to look at Jesus and be
thankful for what he did and somehow believe that because he became a servant
and was willing to die, we don’t have to. That kind of theology completely
misses the point of the call to discipleship. As Paul demonstrates in this
text, we look at Jesus so that the same mind might be in us. During Lent we
look at the cross because it is that same cross that Jesus called his disciples
to take up daily.
When we look at Jesus and then look at our lives, we see a vast difference. That is why Lent is about repentance. This is our time to confess the difference.