March 20, 2005

The Self-Emptying Nature of God

Text: Philippians 2:5-11

My 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.

I. The Kenosis Hymn

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.

II. The Mind of Christ

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.

III. Let the Same Mind Be in Us

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.