Philippians 2:5-11
Have you ever wondered what God is like? What God is really like? We all have our own ideas about God. Ideas formed by our past experiences. Perhaps you went to Sunday School as a child. Perhaps you came from an abusive religious background. Maybe you came from no church background at all, and the way you think about God is how people generally think about God: He’s a big ogre in the sky who will judge and smite you for the smallest mistake. Or, he’s a mystical fluffy stuffed animal that loves everyone no matter what they do or what kind of lifestyle they may live. Or maybe God is some distant watchmaker who created the world a long time ago, wound it up like a watch, and then just left it to fend for itself. Therefore, when we go through our daily trials and sufferings, we don’t even think to turn to God because he’s off dancing through the universe like some kind of cosmic Billy Burke.
Or perhaps your ideas of God are formed from your reading of the Bible. You may think that God seems particularly stern and mean in the Old Testament, and then somehow with the coming of Jesus, he turns over a new leaf and becomes a very loving and compassionate sort of deity. Perhaps your reading of the Bible makes you think that God just cares about rule keeping. He gives us a bunch of rules and laws that no one can really keep, but he expects us to keep anyway. Maybe your reading about Jesus in the New Testament makes you think that God‘s just this big, gentle-hugging grandpa-buddy who we can just approach without a second thought. We can just approach this “big guy upstairs” with the familiarity, comfort, and casualness of a well-worn pair of jeans. Somehow, we got into our thinking that Jesus makes it so we can approach God with no reverence at all (even though St. John, when he saw the resurrected Jesus in the book of Revelation as Jesus was coming to judge the seven churches, the same St. John who reclined with Jesus and laid his head on His chest at the Last Supper, who here in Revelation, falls face down before Jesus as though he were dead due to Jesus’ awesome glory and unspeakable majesty).
Well, whatever your conception of God may be, Jesus shows us exactly who God is as reflected in today’s epistle reading in Philippians. This passage tells us a great deal about Jesus. And Jesus tells us all we need to know about God. If you are looking for a definition of God apart from Jesus, I promise you, your definition of God is wrong. So, I’d say it’s important to an infinite degree to know who Jesus is. Some folks think that Jesus was just a good man. Some think that he was just a great prophet. Others think that he was just a wonderful teacher. Well, he was all these things, but if that’s all you believe that Jesus is, again, you’re woefully wrong. St. Paul tells us today in this passage, which was originally an early Christian poem or hymn, that Jesus came and was born in human form even though, by nature, he is God. As such, he is equal with God. This is precisely what St. John tells us in his opening prologue to his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John even mentions Jesus’ quality with God in John 5:18. That verse says that Jesus was not only breaking the sabbath rules, but that the Jewish leaders wanted to kill him because he was also calling God His own Father making himself equal with God.
In the first century when the NT was written, there were, in fact, certain men who vied for the position of deity: the emperors of Rome. Caesar Augustus was hailed “savior and lord of the world.” In fact, a popular slogan in the first century was precisely, “Caesar is Lord.” Some even held Augustus as a god and the divine son of god. Where have we heard these titles before? Savior of the world? Lord of the world? Divine son of God? These are precisely the titles the New Testament authors apply to Jesus. But look how differently the Caesars of Rome and Jesus of Nazareth defined what it meant to be God. The emperors were full of themselves. They lived in palaces and ruled from lofty thrones. Jesus totally flips the tables on our understanding of God. Paul says that though Jesus was in the form of God he did not count equality with God something to be grasped. He did not consider his equality with God something to take advantage of, but rather, emptied himself – meaning, He took no advantage of his divine status and prerogatives.
How different from our petty, human games. We drop names to sound important. We list our accomplishments to make ourselves look good. We try to one up someone else. We try to appear like everything is all right even though our inner world is crashing down around our feet. We put on fake smiles. On Facebook, we post our best faces, tell how wonderful our children are, and take pictures of ourselves on the beach in Maui with an umbrella drink. All the while we’re rotting on the inside. It is all a lie to keep us from appearing vulnerable. What Jesus said is true: we are beautiful, shiny whitewashed tombs on the outside, but full of dead bones on the inside.
Adam was a man created to be the icon of God in creation. He, and his descendants with Eve, were to represent God to creation and represent creation back to God like an angled mirror. Yet, that was not good enough for Adam. He didn’t want to be God’s image-bearer, he wanted to be God. And so do we. You can tell this from our lifestyles. We think only of ourselves. Or we think of others in order to benefit ourselves. Everything is done for our pleasure and convenience. We say, “Fast for Lent? Are you kidding me? I don’t have to do those religious things!” And, so, we even use Jesus’ work on the cross to excuse our lazy, comfortable spirituality. We think we are God because we think everything is about us. Just like Adam, our first father. Like father, like son.
But unlike Adam, Jesus, the New Adam, being God Himself, didn’t assert Himself, but – as a human being should – submitted himself to God. Adam sought to take off the yoke of submission to God. And in doing so, he fell into sin and death and plunged all of us into that death. Jesus, in pouring Himself out for the sake of others, entered our death. He emptied himself. He did not take advantage of his divine status. He did only what God, His Father, wanted him to do, being dependent on His Father for all things, being empowered by His Father’s Holy Spirit.
Of course, as next week is all about, humiliation now means exaltation later. Because Jesus was obedient to the point of death on that cruel, humiliating, and agonizing cross, God exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ, not Caesar, is Lord – to the glory of God the Father. If that phrase “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess” sounds familiar, it’s because you have read it in Isaiah 45. It is there that Yahweh, the God of Israel himself, says, “To me every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess.” Yahweh is the name that Jesus has been given. Not because it is Jesus Name by nature (though that is true), but because Yahweh is such a God who does what Jesus did. Like Son, like Father (Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9).
To finish, let me say to you, to say, “Jesus is God, but He came to die for us anyway” is wrong. We need to realize that Jesus is God and because of that, He came to die for us. A god which does not do that, is no god at all. That is the point of this Philippians passage. And, this is the same mind we are to have. Where we seek to climb the ladder of success and think only of upward mobility, Jesus teaches us that, to be like God, we should always be seeking downward mobility, putting others above ourselves. To be like God is not to sit on a lofty throne, but to be nailed to a wooden cross. That is precisely why Jesus tells us, “If you want to be my disciple, pick up your cross daily and follow me.” If that sounds like too much to handle, it is. But Christ’s grace helps us as we decide to arise and follow Him.