B, Palm-Passion Sunday - Phillipians 2:8-10 "Hard to be Humble"

Philippians 2:8–10 (ESV) 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.

To be humble is possibly the hardest thing for us to be or do!  Even those appearing to be humble usually only appear to be humble.  Most will tout, they feel humbled, when they’re praised by peers.  One could argue that feeling is not one of being humbled, in the true sense of the word.  Rather, one feels honoured because they’re actually being exalted! 

However, when one is truly humbled by their peers, they’re not exalted, they’re made low!  The situation knocks them, one is put in his or her place, they’re made to feel low, lower than what they once felt.  When one is truly humbled, rather than claim they’re honoured, they complain they’re hard-done-by, or humiliated!    

True humility calls for the death of self.  When it comes to humility like this, you and I, always look for another way.  Why is being truly humble so hard?  Why is the death of self so difficult that we continually search for other options?  It’s hard to be humble!

In 1980, Mac Davis wrote a song.  Some of you might know its chorus, “Oh Lord it's hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way.  I can't wait to look in the mirror; cause I get better looking each day.  To know me is to love me; I must be a hell of a man.  Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble, but I'm doing the best that I can.”

I imagine most will resonate with this song’s chorus, more than Philippians chapter two verse eight.  “Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  When death came to Christ, he was truly humble.  With his divinity put aside, out of sight, he took the low way of the cross. 

To be humble like Jesus, is strange and foreign to us.  To be humble as Mac Davis sings, or more precisely, to not be humble, is so much easier.

We resonate with this song more because of its self-contradicting comedy, the lyrics are haughty and proud while claiming to be humble.  But whether or not we find the lyrics amusing, they expose something not so funny.  So serious is the truth of what they uncover, the remedy comes only through the humility of Jesus Christ.

Like the song, our human humility actually is a humiliation of our humanity, and this leads to death.  The belief we are perfect, or more perfect than the next fellow, is buried within each of us.  When we look in the mirror, perhaps we don’t think we get better looking each day!   Those of us who don’t, still look in the mirror, compare, and picture ourselves better than someone else!  

Like the song, those that don’t love me are those that obviously don’t know me!  “I must be a hell of a man!”  Well actually, there’s probably more truth here than the writer of the song intends.  O Lord, it’s not hard to be haughty, at this we all seek to outdo each other!

Even when we’re humiliated by others, we ironically still seek to be haughty.  “Woe is me!  Nobody is as bad off as me”, might be the gripe made!  I’m more worse off than all others worse off!  This is a paradoxical exaltation of one’s lowliness! 

Then there’s also the rejection of humility by stating, “ I’m okay, others have it worse off than me!”  We’ve all been in this situation, and heard these words come from our mouths.

Such is the haughtiness of our humanity.  Humility and holiness are easily confused with humiliation of others and haughtiness!  It takes Jesus Christ to sort it out for us on the cross.  Before the cross, and our baptism into it, as enemies of God!  As well as after the cross, and our baptismal lives carrying our cross, as the Holy Spirit works to recreate us as God’s holy children in Jesus Christ.

Do you remember the Warner Brothers cartoon character, Foghorn Leghorn?  He’s the loud-mouthed rooster who’s anything but humble!  In his struggle to become the “top dog” on the farm he’s in a constant feud with the dog.  Once when he was outdone by the dog he says one of his familiar sayings, “That dog, I say that dog is lower than a snake full of buckshot.”

This saying is similar to an Australian expression, “They’re lower than a snake’s belly!” On the scale of things, you really cannot get much lower than the belly of a snake.  Both we and Foghorn Leghorn, make this statement from a haughty height.  Yet in reality, although we wouldn’t get down in the dirt and look a snake in the eye, we’re already there, humiliating ourselves in the dirt by the height of our human haughtiness.

Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus tell Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5–6 ESV)

Being born of the Spirit is our baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection!  Jesus goes on to compare himself to the bronze serpent in the Old Testament, saying, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”  (John 3:14 ESV)

As much as you or I wouldn’t get down in the dirt to look a snake in the eye, none of us would willingly allow ourselves to be humbled and lifted up with the shame and lowliness, of a snake’s belly, or a snake full of buckshot.  

It’s at about this point, we realise we have hoodwinked ourselves, between our unwillingness to truly be humble, and our desire to be haughty.  So, without any humour in our haughty humus, we cry out to God, “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble.”  The best we can do is not good enough!  I am a worm of a man; I am lower than a snake’s belly!  And yet, this low, I find myself ungrounded, debased, and like dirt, infested with weeds.

One of Job’s friends who wrongly takes the haughty position in judgement over Job, wrongly misuses God’s truth, saying, “How then can man be in the right before God?  How can he who is born of woman be pure? …how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!”  (Job 25:4, 6 ESV)

Jesus is greater than any friend of Job!  He, the Son of Man, gets down with the afflicted, humiliated by our own affliction, by our own foolish deeds.  As the Psalmist wrote, inspired by the pre-incarnate Son of God, “I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.  All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads.” (Psalm 22:6–7 ESV)

Jesus becomes that worm, that maggot, lower than a snake’s belly!  Yet, he is lifted up and displayed like a snake, in affliction for all who are afflicted with sin.  The Sinless One, is lifted up afflicted and debased with our sin!  Where we find it too slippery to sort out our true humility from our haughtiness, he came down into the slithering cesspool of our sin, became sin, without sin, and was lifted up for forgiveness of sin.

We, like those on Palm Sunday, may very well have invited Jesus into Jerusalem with shouts of hosannah!  Yet, as we will sing to Jesus shortly, “We made your crown with thorns from deep inside us, hammered your hands with nails no-one supplied us.  We need no help to stage a crucifixion; it’s our affliction.”

How quickly the heights of our hosannahs are reduced to the reality of our human haughtiness in the face of the cross.  Although we did not need help to stage a crucifixion, Jesus now bears your affliction! 

We killed him, yet he needed to be killed for us.  His death was unjustifiable!  Our killing him, is the height of human haughtiness, that condemns us. 

But the paradox of the passion is this; his death justifies us!  He humbled himself in the face of human haughtiness, and this now saves you and me from our haughtiness. 

As you’re led to a deeper knowledge of your haughtiness, see the purity of him, who humbled himself and took the heaviness of your haughty sin.  See the weight of your sin on him!  Let the Holy Spirit produce in you the true humility to carry your cross.   Just as he went through the hardship and humility of the cross,  be led to glorify him in your relationships of forgiveness with one another.  Amen.

B, Palm/Passion Sunday - Philippians 2:5-11 "Seven Days of Holy Week"

On Palm Sunday Jesus was glorified by the crowd but just five days later they screamed for his crucifixion.  What happened in this week changed the course of humanity forever. 

On the surface it looks like chaos and a complete miscarriage of justice, but those who received the Holy Spirit and believed the resurrection testify to the crowd,

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—  this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.  God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:22–24 ESV)

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”  Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart. (Acts 2:36–37a ESV)

Now we who have been baptised and received the Holy Spirit submit to God’s Word, dwelling on it as we carry our crosses on the road to eternity with Jesus.  But what can we take away from this Lenten season, from this Palm Passion Sunday and our Saviour’s death on Good Friday?

Yes we know the eighth day is coming! The day of Jesus’ resurrection!  And we know in trusting God and his word we will be raised too.  But how can we reflect on these seven days of Holy Week, and every seven day week in which we live until our final week here is replaced and we’re resurrected into the eternal eighth day of God’s heavenly reality?

It is very easy for us to hear of the events of Jesus’ passion and ponder that we are people like the Palm Sunday crowd, and that maybe so!  But what was the motive of the crowd on Palm Sunday, especially after Jesus enters the temple and upturns the tables when they hoped for him to overturn the Roman government and throw them out of Jerusalem.  Had Jesus wronged them? 

Maybe Jesus is not living up to your expectations!  Perhaps he is not giving you what you want, seemingly wronging you, letting you suffer like a slave rather than letting you kickback like a king.

Saint Paul tells us, 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. (Philippians 2:5–11ESV)

Here we are told we’re given the gift of this mind amongst ourselves from Jesus himself.  Jesus did not see himself as God.  He emptied himself!  He became a servant!  A slave! He was truly they Son of Man, the servant of man!  Even though Jesus is not only the Messiah, the Anointed King, he is the Son of God.  But he humbled himself to be the Servant Son or Slave of Man.  In short he became nothing.

But in the horror of being made nothing he has made us something.  He has made us someone before God!  Unfortunately, more often than not, we take this someone to be something other than the humble creature servant kings and children of God, and once again take our being liked by God, recreated in the likeness of God, and seek to usurp him by being like God.

Jesus knew we would continue to struggle in this old creation of seven days.  This is why he lay down his life for us, and why he sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in his Word through this life until he ends the old seven day creation once and for all and carries us into the eighth day of his eternal kingdom at our resurrection.

So Jesus gave us a prayer in which the Holy Spirit helps us to pray and we can use its petitions this week to reflect on our sinful condition and why Jesus had to die for me, you and all people.  This prayer is the Lord’s Prayer and it can help those who believe to look deeply into the loving heart of God and our hearts that need this steadfast, constant, merciful and generous love.

In fact this pray and its seven petitions is a perfect mirror of reflection on the seven days of Holy Week, and for that matter any seven day week made holy for those who believe as they wait for the kingdom, power and glory to be made manifest for them at their resurrection.  Ironically, each petition reflects the actions of the crowd as they descend from Palm Sunday’s “Hosanna” to “Crucify him” on Good Friday.

In Luther’s explanation of the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven”, he writes, “Here God encourages us to believe that he is truly our Father and we are his children”.  In other words, this prayer is a recognisation of our restored creatureliness in the presence of God.  We receive the gift of Jesus’ kingship and it’s a kingship of servanthood.  We live in a relationship with God similar to that of God and Adam before the fall, but now after the fall we live it in the reality of sin, death, and evil.  We pray to our Father in heaven, in the hope of our restoration through the perfect creaturely New Adam, Jesus Christ.

Let’s now look at the seven days of Holy Week and see how they sit with the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

Sunday’s petition, Hallowed by your name.  It appears the crowd were hallowing God’s name with shouts of Hosanna!  But were they hallowing it to glorify God or were they worshipping what they wanted Jesus to be for them.  Here we can reflect on our motivation and confess that we so often seek to use God for our own benefit.  This is using God to justify our own godliness.  A godliness that is not sacrificial like Jesus. A godliness that sits in judgement over God and his Word rather than one that sits in submission and servanthood!  

Monday, Your kingdom come.  As we go off and pick up the regular beat of the week, have you taken God with you?  In other words, are you still the creaturely servant God has called you to be?  Or have you put God back in his Sunday box and picked up pursuing your kingdom?  Are you 100% for God as Jesus was?  Are you carrying your cross or are you tempted to put off the cross to keep face with the world?  God’s kingdom comes when we allow the Holy Spirit to turn over the tables of our human spirit so we believe that God’s kingdom has come in baptism, is coming despite the crosses we bear, and will come at the resurrection.  Let us confess Jesus in the kingdom of this world through our confession of sin and Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins.

Tuesday, Your will be done on earth as in heaven.  What is God’s will for you?  Firstly, it is his will to forgive us our sins, for we know not what we do.  He doesn’t just forgive us for what we do, he forgives us for who we are.  In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39 ESV)  God’s will is to forgive sin.  This is the steadfast love of God for we who struggle with a steadfast natures of sin. 

And God’s will for us on earth is to be the new Adams and the new Eves as fulfilled in Jesus.  As kings and servants in the kingdom of God on earth we forgive as God has forgiven us.

Wednesday, Give us this day our daily bread.  Hear God gives us a petition of prayer showing us the reality of our need.  As creatures we ask for all we need.  The going is tough so we are reminded to turn to God just as Jesus did.  We pray, “Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let this food to us be blessed.”  But there is a second more important part that points us to Maundy Thursday which the church can pray, “blessed be God who is our bread may the world be clothed and fed!” 

Thursday, Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  The first three petitions encourage us to look to God in his holiness and love, now after the fourth, we can reflect on why he has to be gracious with us. 

Our creatureliness is fallen but our sin is covered by Jesus’ body and blood, given and she for forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  If we change this petition to first person it reads, “forgive me my sin as I forgive those who sin against me.”  This is the only active part of the Lord’s Prayer attributed to us, to me, all other actions are attributed to God. 

Our lives in Christ are a calling to forgive others as Jesus forgives us.  But notice how the petition is worded in reverse. We ask God to forgive us the same way we forgive others.  How do you forgive others?  If you are anything like me you will be made humble by just how gracious God is despite our ongoing struggle to forgive others.  The cross we bear in forgiving others requires the death of our pride and all that our human nature and spirit trusts other than God.

Friday, Lead us not into temptation.  Good Friday is the day of the great exchange.  Crucify him, Crucify him. God crucifies your kingdom and gives you his when you were baptised into his death and resurrection.  When you are tempted to not believe God’s work in your baptism, see that God did not send his only Son to his cross for nothing.  His blood covers you sin, don’t be tempted you are now no longer in need of forgiveness as if you now no longer need his crucifixion. 

Our temptation is also to crucify others with our accusations. This is a temptation back into the kingdom of darkness.  We now live in the kingdom of light and it’s a kingdom of forgiveness. Do not be tempted to toss away and crucify God’s eternal kingdom.

Saturday, But deliver us from evil.  This is the final and seventh petition.  On Holy Saturday Jesus showed his sinlessness to those in hell.  Now that Jesus has been crucified his death crucifies all unholiness. You are delivered from evil into holiness. 

But just as Jesus remembered the Sabbath and made it holy with his perfect sinless rest in the grave and descent into hell we are called to ponder the holiness we have received in baptism. No longer are we commanded "be holy for the Lord is holy" as a work with which to busy ourselves. Rather our being is holy because the Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus. 

We can now do the work of bringing our evil into the light through confession of sin, which might seem to be the wrong thing to do but it pleases God because it shows trust in the good work Jesus did at the cross and the good work the Holy Spirit continues us to do by bring us to Jesus every day in repentance.

As you go from here into this week walk the Holy Week with Jesus. Walk with Jesus to the cross and in carrying your cross know it is Jesus who truly bears your load of sin and death, and it is he who carries you through to the resurrection.

Our Father in heaven, the kingdom, and the power and the glory are yours, now and forever, Amen.