First Sunday of Advent
November 29, 2009
 
 
  Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2009
 

First Sunday After Christmas
December 27, 2009
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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November 29, 2009—First Sunday of Advent

Lectionary Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

Sermon Text: Philippians 2:1-11

The Preposterous Exchange: Humility

Frederick Nietzche, one of the founders of modern existentialism, analyzed human personality and provided an insight that I think is crucial for us to understand. He argued that the basic motivation behind all human behavior is the WILL TO POWER.

Nietzche said that it's the craving and the desire to have power that motivates people in relationships, even within the context of family. I can understand what Nietzche was saying, because after all, who doesn't relish the thought of being powerful? Power is a drive in human nature!

There was a sociologist who saw the marriage of his parents disintegrate, followed by his own. As he tried to analyze from a sociological perspective why the marriages fell apart, he came to a very intriguing conclusion: "Marriages disintegrate," he said, "because people are more interested in playing "power" games than they are in playing "love" games. In any relationship, as power increases, love decreases."

I think he's on to something. Imagine a couple. She's desperately in love with him, but he doesn't love her. She is desperate to hold on to him, but he doesn't care whether she stays around or not. Who is in the position of power in that relationship?

The person who doesn't love is in the position of control. It is the "principle of least interest", because in any relationship the one who is least interested in maintaining the relationship is in the position of power. And that person can manipulate, and control, and dominate, because that person can call all the shots.

Have you seen couples like that--where she's anxious to keep the marriage together and he could care less, and therefore he can be boss? He can act like he feels like acting and do what he feels like doing, but she on the other hand, is desperate and fearful and doing everything she can to hold the relationship together.

Manipulative power and unconditional love are diametrically opposed. In any relationship, as love increases, power decreases; and likewise as power increases, love decreases.

That raises a very probing question during this Advent season: In my interpersonal relationships, am I playing power games or love games? I am convinced that many of us never come to know love in any significant way because we're always on power trips.
From time to time I'll have someone come up to me and ask: "Who is supposed to be the head of the house?" That's the wrong question. You ask the wrong question, you get the wrong answer.

· The Christian doesn't ask: Who's going to have the power?

· The Christian doesn't ask: Who's going to be in control?

· The Christian doesn't ask: Who's going to be the master?

· The CHRISTIAN asks: Who is going to be the servant?

When you ask who's going to be the master, and who's going to have the power, and who's going to be in charge around here, you're asking the same question that James and John asked Jesus when they said: "Master, when you come into your kingdom, who's going to sit on your left hand, who's going to sit on the right?" In other words, who's going to have the power?

Jesus answered: "If you understood my kingdom, you wouldn't ask that question, because in my kingdom, those who would be first are voluntarily the last, and those who are the last are the first!" Those with the most power in my kingdom are the servants."

It seems like everywhere I turn these days everybody's talking about servanthood. But do you know what else I'm discovering? When the chips are really down, and the game is on the line, what everybody REALLY wants to know is who's going to be in charge? Who's going to be in control? Who's going to have the power? Who's going to call the shots?

That mindset dominates our society at large, it dominates our families, and more times than any of us want to admit it dominates in the church. Everybody is trying to figure out who's going to be in control.

But my brother and sister, we have not learned that question from Jesus Christ! The Apostle Paul said: "Though being in very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant . . ."

I'm a little afraid that we've heard that phrase so often, and talked about that concept so much, that its reality doesn't seem all that amazing to us. But what does it really mean when it says that: "Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped"?

Does it mean that Jesus really wasn't God, and didn't really possess his power, and that he decided one day, just as the serpent tempted Adam in the Garden, that he wanted to be equal with God? NO! The preexistent Christ was already equal with God in both power and nature. John 1:1 tells us: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God … And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

Does it mean that Jesus saw his equality with God as something to be clutched and held on to, opening up the possibility of future advantage for himself and exploiting his status to selfish ends? NO! The Son of God was not created. No spirit or angel brought him into the state of being with God, and nobody could ever bring him out of it.

You see, we assume that "God-likeness" means having our own way, getting what we want, and being in control. But Jesus' coming tells us that "God-likeness," at it's most fundamental level is about "giving yourself away" and "pouring yourself out." That's the message of the Incarnation!

Notice exactly what it Philippians says: "Jesus, being in the form of God." It doesn't say: "Jesus, THOUGH he was in the form of God." I believe the NASB and the NRSV have missed it in translation here. Because essentially, what the original language is saying is: "Precisely BECAUSE he was in the form of God he considered equality with God not as a matter of getting but of giving."

Jesus Christ did what he did and came as he came and made the preposterous exchange from supremacy to sacrifice, because that is exactly what God would do! In fact, you could truthfully say he did what he did because he WAS God. This passage is telling us that God, by his very nature, is characterized NOT by selfish hoarding, but by open-handed giving.

We have tended to define God by what he is "not": God is IMmortal, INvisible, INfinite. But what is God "like", positively?
Jesus' disciples were asking the same question when they came to him one day and said: "Lord, show us the Father." Do you remember what he said? He said: "If you have seen me you have seen the Father." Paul, in his majestic sermon to the Colossians said: "Christ is the image of the invisible God . . . For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him."

What is God like? God is Christ-like! What is Jesus like? Jesus is God-like! And so Paul says, precisely BECAUSE he was in the form of God he emptied himself for the sake of others, and willingly poured himself out because it was his very nature to do so.

You say: "What did Christ empty himself of then?" Did he empty himself of his godly powers of omniscience, and omnipresence, and all of his divine substance or essence? What did he give up?
We could go on and talk forever about what Christ "gave up" in the Incarnation. But the interesting thing is that Paul really gives us no clue as to what it was that Christ emptied himself of. Which leads me to believe that maybe it's not even necessary to say that Christ emptied himself of anything. Maybe he was simply being who he was.

But I am convinced of this--while Christ may have given nothing up, without question he certainly took something on--and Paul is rather clear about that. He added to himself that which he did not have before: "the form of a servant in human likeness."

For thousands of years, God demonstrated his power in time and history. He scattered the enemies of Israel. Over and over again we see the awesome magnificence of God's power! A power that far surpasses the majesty of earthly kings.

And yet the God who could order empires around like pawns on a chessboard showed up wearing a different kind of glory . . . the glory of weakness. This God emerged as a baby who couldn't speak or eat solid food or control his bladder, who depended on a teenage girl for shelter, food, and love.

And the question is why? Why would he come in that way? It's because that's the way God is. And two thousand years ago we learned that amazing lesson when the all-powerful God decided that the time had come to express his love in infinite fashion. And in order to express his infinite love, the infinitely powerful God did the only thing he could do, because he understood that love increases as power decreases, and therefore the only way he could express infinite love was to set aside infinite power!

Can you even begin to grasp the awesome risk of that? It seems like such a fragile thread from which to hang the heavy hopes and dreams of humanity. And yet, if we don't understand that, we don't understand the Kingdom of God. "Precisely BECAUSE he was in very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant."

And yet as obvious as that message is, even in the church, we often fail to catch up to the message of the Kingdom. As a matter of fact Jesus disciples were upset with him because he didn't act more "Messiah-like." And the people of God have been upset ever since! Everywhere you turn in the history of the church there is a power-play at work. And yet the truth has not changed, and history is clear, when the people of God use the tools of the world's kingdom, we become as ineffectual and oppressive, as any other power structure.

We can have all power at our disposal, even having armies at our command. But if we take that path, don't think for one moment that we can then come back and say: "In the name of Jesus, we love you."

Love is the most transforming power in time and history. And it is time for Christians in the midst of a power-crazed age to stand up and say NO MORE! We have come to declare the love of God, believing that the fabric of our world will be changed not through guns and tanks and planes, but through the infinite love of God.

What are we really saying? Are we saying that all power is destined for evil purposes? Not at all. But I am trying to say that any time we do not understand the limits of our power, we are DESTINED to abuse our power!

You say: "There are certain things that will never change without power and you're naive for believing that." If that is true then the most naive being in the universe is God himself, because that is not the path he chose.

He could have come leading an army, forcing the world to bend their knee. And yet he didn't. Do you know why? Because God's purpose was not to defeat people, it was to transform them. Power can drive people into submission, but only love can convert them! And that is the way of the Kingdom of God!

My friends, our God is able to accomplish more in our weakness than we can in our power! That's what Advent teaches us! What makes us most like Christ is not our ability to control, but our willingness to love! And somehow the love of God reveals itself more beautiful in those who seem to be nothing, than in those who think themselves to be something.

It seems preposterous. And yet the message of the Kingdom is clear: "Whoever chooses to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will find it."

"Whoever will exalt himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

And, "Whoever humbles himself as this little child will be the greatest in the kingdom of God."