C, Palm/Passion - Philippians 2:5–11 "Cross the Crevasse"

Philippians 2:5–11 (ESV) Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The world is in trouble!  Everyone is running for their lives.  As people run, they cut adrift anything that might slow their efforts in escaping the trouble that looms large, like ominous storm clouds building and swirling.  You too, run for your life!  You see others lightening their loads and running on ahead, you contemplate doing the same thing.  You overtake a person who has stopped to cut away excess weight.  Soon, they too run past, with less on their backs than you.

Up ahead, those who have run ahead have stopped, they appear frantic and helpless, like chickens in a chook house invaded by a hungry fox.  You arrive with those who are milling around like startled sheep swirling and shunting each other in the yard.  Then it comes into view, a dirty great big crevasse has opened up in the earth. 

The world is trembling and in the violence of its quaking and shaking, the ground has opened up.  No one can work out how to get across.  It’s too far to jump, and it’s too deep to scale down, cross, and climb the other side.  Anyone who tries is a dead man. Furthermore, at the bottom bubbling larva boils and surges up from eternal depths, turning everything to ash before it even reaches the liquid orange fire.  You can feel its intention to incinerate you, just looking over the edge. 

Others arrive seeking their escape from the same erupting earthquake and melting mountains making their way to meet the molten abyss.  At the edge they gather with you, sandwiched between certain death on every side.  It’s a picture not unlike Moses and the Israelites trapped between Egypt and the Red Sea.  But this red sea is not a sea of water, it’s a sea of red fire!

Great minds gathered with children.  Youthful strength gathered with the elderly.  A unity of military might, greater than that of the United States and China combined, all gather at the edge nervously awaiting their fate.  There’s absolutely nothing they can do.  There’s not a desire or a piece of earthly wisdom that can help this situation!

But from what is humanity running?  And towards what is the chasm they’re running?  It all sounds like a farfetched action movie where the hero pulls off the impossible.  It sounds like an epic battle between humankind and mother nature’s climate change, or a menace from outer space! But it’s not!  It’s much simpler than that.  

The trouble in the world from which humanity is seeking to escape, and the horror to which it arrives is the abyss of ourselves, our humanity, our mortality.  It’s not a make-believe movie script, but the very real everyday struggle of your existence.  Human beings being human means we’re mortal. What are synonyms for being mortal?  In short, human existence is deadly, terminal, transient, temporary, or fatal. 

It matters not how many scientists hypothesise! Nor how many sports or militaries amount might! Nor how many wordsmiths philosophise! Nor how many theologians divide and dilute the Word of God! Nor how much makeup we try to manicure and beautify our being! From the greatest to the least, we cannot escape being human, being mortal!  The greatest fear in a human being, is not being anymore!   

In Philippians chapter two Paul demonstrates how Jesus has crossed the ravine of impossibility, and calls each of us to trust in him alone to cross the crevasse for our salvation.  We hear, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus”. (Philippians 2:5 ESV)

What is yours in Christ Jesus is a “ God-given-gut-discernment” since “mind” here comes from a Greek word meaning midriff.  This “gut instinct” is not born of your feelings though. Rather, in Jesus Christ, you have been given the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding of God’s Word in this troubled world.  Jesus’ gut instinct to look to our Father alone, is now yours.

Paul continues, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped”. (Philippians 2:6 ESV)

The form of God, or morph of God, means Jesus shares in the divine nature of God, and therefore, is God.  He is the second member of the eternal Trinity!  Yet, he didn’t equal himself with God.  Unlike Adam and Eve, he didn’t seek to be “like God” and allow desire within, to take a hold of his divine nature, and grasp it, as they took a hold of fruit from the tree of knowledge and evil.

Instead of grasping his divine right, he did the opposite and emptied himself and willingly allowed himself to be born “like man”, in the likeness of man.  But even lower than man, he willingly allowed himself to be pushed through the birth canal of suffering, to walk the way of death as the servant slave of all people.  Jesus emptied himself and became the Son of Man.

Then Paul says, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8 ESV)

Picture that! Being knowingly and willingly born into flesh that is fatally flawed.  Just like us caught between the fatality of birth and the hellish chasm of death, Jesus knowingly allowed himself to be born into the shadow of death under Herod the Great and the suffering and death of the cross, to not only endure the human birth canal but to be pushed further and deeper into the depths of hell.

Then we hear, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name”. (Philippians 2:9 ESV)

God “highly exalted” him, in the Greek is a single word with two parts meaning to “over elevate”.  Both parts of the Greek word have their origins in the Greek word “hyper”. 

One could say that after Jesus allowing the two steps of humiliation to occur, being born into death, and then being delivered over to death, albeit innocently and without sin, God then “hyper hypered” him in a two-part exaltation, as it were!  Jesus’ faithfulness to God as a Son and his faithfulness to us as the fatal servant Son of Man is the reason for God’s hyper exaltation of Jesus and his name!

 After all, Jesus is “the One” who calmly walks through convulsing crowds of panicking people.  He was born and baptised into mortality; to be a human in the face of death, that we’re not.  In fact, Jesus Christ was the only human ever born for the sole purpose to die.  A human being, intentionally being human without the fear of his humanity.  Jesus feared our Heavenly Father more than his humanity and its death and was faithful to his Father unto death.

This is why he calmly walked to the edge of humanity and allowed himself to be lifted up in hellishness on the cross, before being delivered into death’s dominion and separation from God, at his descent into hell. 

However, the innocence of his suffering and death, his holy humanity, was a light not even the darkness of hell’s death could extinguish.  Therefore, God raised him to his right hand, on the other side of the ravine of eternal death.  The mortal is now swallowed by immortality, death is swallowed by true life.

There will come a time when all people shall kneel at the name of Jesus Christ and confess him, to the glory of God the Father.  Those who have bowed to him will continue doing so with eternal joy.  But those who have trusted in their humanity, cutting Christ from their lives to flee immediate troubles, cutting back God’s Word to work their own ways, seemingly cutting off Christ for shallow success, will moan that they didn’t seek him before their mortality failed to save them.

As Paul says to the Philippians, I say to you, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13 ESV)

God has now implanted in you the knowledge of Jesus Christ, while you live in a world that’s in trouble.  Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you with God’s Word, what to discard, as you advance to the edge of your mortality. Don’t cut off Christ and the cross he calls you to carry.  Work out you salvation with fear and trembling, discarding your deadly understanding of good and evil, and in its place allow a Holy Spirit guided knowledge of what makes your humanity eternal — to cross the crevasse with Christ. Amen.