Philippians 2.5-11
AN EXPOSITION FOR
PALM SUNDAY
2009
Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from Almighty God, the Father, @
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The reading that we shall look at more closely is the second reading
we heard this morning in which St. Paul said of “Christ Jesus,
...though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born
in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Few sections of the Bible have been as explicit a theological
description of who Jesus Christ is as these words St. Paul wrote to
the Philippians (and to us).
Their main theme is the what we call Christ's “state of humiliation”,
that Jesus chose to be a suffering servant. He could have remained as
He was before the Creation of the world: the glorious Son of God who
had no flesh and no sufferings and when humans sinned, - as He had
done with the angels that sinned – He could have simply condemned all
humans also to hell.
Then He would have had to trash not only some of his angels as He did
because they became imperfect, but also all the humans He had created
and He would have wasted His time.
And it would be no good creating more universes populated by
intelligent creatures, because, if they also had free will, they
would also inevitably choose to disobey and also have to be destroyed
and God would be viewed by His holy angels as just the perpetually
angry maker of universes that He would later destroy when they
inevitably became imperfect. At the end of all of that condemnation,
He would only have shown His hatred of sin and His righteous wrath
meanwhile creating countless hells to hold all that He had to trash.
But that is not what God intended.
Yes, He created us knowing that knowing that we would sin, but God
also created us with the capability of being redeemable.
How? By designing us to be, unlike angels, who could only be punished
with eternal death, actually capable of two deaths as punishment for
sin: eternal death and physical death.
Both deaths - eternal death (the Bible calls the “second death”) and
physical death each have a certain respective finality, both are
sufficient punishment for sin, yet they are still not the same and the
brilliant part of the design is that it is mercifully possible to
experience the one, but not the other.
You see, the option of two deaths, that humans have, gives us a built-
in advantage that is not only advantageous to us, but also to God, who
could redeem us through suffering one kind of death Himself (physical
death) from which He could be resurrected, having atoned for human sin
and cleared the way for Him ”to show his righteousness at the present
time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has
faith in Jesus”(Romans 3.26).
Yes, I am saying God planned to use our physical death as the
centerpiece of a grand demonstration of His love from the very
creation of our world. And that demonstration of love is what St. Paul
describes in today's Epistle reading, the redeeming and atoning
sacrificial work of God’s Son who became human so that not all humans
would have to end up in the trash because of sin. As he wrote to the
Romans:
“God demonstrated His love for us in this way – that while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5.8).
Had humans been created like the angels, everlasting, but with only a
single kind of death that was possible for us (the eternal kind), then
for Christ to demonstrate His love for us by sparing us the punishment
that we deserved and substituting Himself instead under the judgment
of God, God’s Son would have to endure eternal death and be
permanently separated from His Father – separating the persons of the
Holy Trinity forever – hardly a practical option!
But we humans are designed to be capable of being punished for sin
with two kinds of death. Jesus could (and did) experience one of them
(physical death) and His demonstration would still serve its purpose.
Because Christ’s death successfully demonstrated that God was loving
and merciful enough to redeem sinners at tremendous cost, both humans
and angels benefited enormously and God is glorified eternally as a
direct result.
Only this is the win-win situation:
Humans win, because we can be forgiven our sins and be spared from
eternal death (a priceless benefit!).
Angels win, because only in witnessing our redemption could the they
observe God, their creator, justifying fallen creatures who otherwise
would have to be trashed - showing mercy and forgiveness toward
sinners without compromising His perfect justice – something they
could never have seen had humans never been created, fallen into sin
and been redeemed through the atoning sacrifice of God’s Son.
And, ultimately God wins, so to speak, because, as the result of what
the crucified and risen Christ has done, both humans and angels join
together to give Him endless praise for the perfect combination of
righteousness and grace that the redemption of humanity displays.
St. Paul wrote,
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His
blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His
forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - He
did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be
just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus" (Romans
3.23-26).
As a side-bar to all this, I would like to draw your attention to how
this changes our view of physical death.
Consider an historic bottle of Napoleon's brandy. It could be kept
"eternally" in a museum or it could "die" by having its cork removed
and its contents poured out. Yet, how foolish it would be for that
bottle to resent such a "death". It was obviously designed to have its
cork removed and its contents poured out. Even after its first
"death", the brandy bottle would not have to have a second death (be
trashed). It could live forever in someone's prized bottle collection.
We are like that bottle of brandy. God seems to have designed us well
to serve the purpose of His glory. Seeing physical death this way
almost rehabilitates it, or at least recognizes that human physical
death serves a higher purpose by showcasing the surpassing love of God.
So, why is it that Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity,
"although he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born
in the likeness of men"?
St. Peter gives us the answer: ”Christ also suffered once for sins,
the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1
Peter 3.18)
And what is the attitude that is in in Christ Jesus that we should
also have among ourselves as Christians? In view of God's mercy
toward sinners like us, we should be willing to look not only to our
own interests, but also the needs of others.
God's plan of salvation was a plan in which every, including Himself,
could come out winners - but only if He was willing to do what it
took for everybody to win. And what it took was servanthood as well
as sainthood. And, in the end, neither His love nor His holiness was
compromised.
So His path of servanthood was strewn with palms amid shouts of praise
and hosannas as well as darkened by jeers, suffering and death –
Christ looked not only to His own interests anyway, but to the needs
of others
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and
on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father.
Amen.
The Revd Dr Jonathan Naumann,
Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church & School
1261 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Oakmont, PA 15139-1195
Internet site:
redeemer-oakmont.org
e-mail:
[email protected]
Tel. (412) 828-9323 Ext. 10
Cell. (412) 983-9922
Home: (412) 826-8833
The Manse
407 W 4th Street,
Pittsburgh, PA 15238
Informal blog:
engelein.blogspot.com
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