Delivered April 1,2012
See the video of this message at this link on YouTube
We all had to take arithmetic in school. Some of us were good at it and some of us weren’t. I don’t know how far you got in math. I was pretty good at it at first. I even enjoyed algebra. But when I took geometry, for some reason I had some trouble with it. Then came trigonometry and calculus, and I was out of my depth. Fortunately in religion we don’t have to use math much. The most I use numbers these days is when I balance my checkbook, monitor my retirement funds, and do the Sudoku puzzles in the newspaper. When you run across numbers in the Bible, most of the time they are symbolic or hyperbolic. Unless you are into calculating years in biblical prophecies until the end of the world or the return of Christ (which I am definitely not into doing) then the only time a pastor needs to use mathematics is when it comes to church budgets. So why entitle a sermon “divine mathematics?” Just to allay your fears, I am not going to delve into the murky waters of numerology. There was a book in the 1990’s entitled “The Bible Code” which purported to discover secret messages encoded in the Hebrew text of the Bible. I think that type of stuff is a bit crazy. Even though numbers have regular symbolic meanings in the Bible, I don’t believe in secret messages or mystical formulas.
Today I am going to explore a famous passage of scripture in Philippians 2. It gives an overall view of the movement of Christ from heaven to earth and back again. I still remember how a New Testament professor of mine in seminary used to graph this divine descent and ascent by putting a parabola on the blackboard. I don’t know if you remember parabolas from math class. I will give you the official definition of a parabola: “In mathematics, a parabola is a conic section, created from the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface.” If you are like me, that is as clear as mud. Let me put it in words that even the mathematically challenged people like me can understand. A parabola is like a big U. That is all you need to know to understand this sermon. That big U – that parabola – graphs the movement of Jesus’ life and our lives.
I. I have two points to this message this morning that follow this mathematical theme. The first one I am calling the PARABOLA OF GRACE. In our passage today the apostle Paul traces the movement of Christ from the heavens to the earth. In another passage he even takes Christ even further down into “lower places of the earth” and then back up to the heavens again. But this is much more than just a tour of the ancient three tiered universe, like Dante’s Divine Comedy. Paul speaks about the spiritual journey that Christ took, and then he invites to take a similar journey.
Our scripture passage today begins with the preincarnate Christ in heaven. Christian theology, following the direction of the apostles John and Paul, teaches that Christ’s life did not start in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. It teaches us that before Christ became a man in Jesus of Nazareth, he was God. Paul say in verse 6 of our passage that “Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God….” In short this means simply that Christ is divine. This is where it gets tricky, because we are talking about the doctrine of the Trinity here, and that can be really confusing. That is where you really get into divine mathematics. If you think trigonometry is bad, just try to figure out Christian theology! 1 person of the trinity plus another person, plus a third: 1+1+1=1. One God in three persons.
Christ preexisted as God in heaven – one of the three persons of the Trinity. But he did not stay in his exalted position in heaven as God. Paul writes: “Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” The NRSV translates it: “but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” Those who know Greek much better than I do say this translation “emptied himself” is more accurate. God emptied himself in Jesus Christ. The eternal God emptied himself to become a human being. Exactly what that means is the million dollar question. How can God became man? It is impossible, and yet we confess that the impossible happened in Jesus Christ. In geometry it is like saying you can have a round square or a two dimensional cube. The words divine and human do not go together. Yet that is exactly what the gospel says happened in Christ.
Then it goes on to say that as Christ made this downward trajectory to earth that he went even further. Verse 7 says he took the form of a servant. Verse 8 of our text says, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Not only did Christ become a man but be became a servant. He made that clear at the Last Supper when he washed his disciples’ feet, something only the lowest household servant did. And he died like a man, even though he was God. Not only did he die like a man, he died the worst death a man could die at that time and place. He died a disgraceful torturous death on a cross.
So we are at the bottom of this parabola now – the lowest of the low. In the trough of this U. Elsewhere the Bible takes us even further than Paul’s words here, talking about him being buried. In his letter to the Ephesians Paul talks about Christ in death descending to the lowest parts of the earth. This is the doctrine of the apostle’s creed where it says that Christ descended into Hades. I don’t want to run down that rabbit hole here today, but you get the point. The almighty eternal God lowered himself to the lowest level possible. The almighty became powerless. The immortal died. The King became a servant. The sinless one became sin. You can’t get any lower than that. The Bible says that the Holy One became sin for us. Again what that means is beyond my understanding. The holy God cannot become sin. Yet the gospel proclaims that is exactly what happened on the cross. He became sin, suffered the consequences of sin, and bore the punishment of sin for us. Theologically speaking this parabola of grace traces Jesus’ journey from the highest heaven to the deepest hell.
Then Jesus begins his return journey to heaven. That begins on Easter morning when the impossible happened again. The dead came back to life. Jesus rose from the dead. People hear this, and they scoff because we all know this can’t happen. And they are right! It can’t happen. Just like God can’t become a man, and 1+1+1 cannot equal 1. It is all impossible. In this same way the resurrection of Jesus is impossible. But Jesus said, what is impossible with man is possible with God. Scripture says that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples over a period of forty days and then bodily ascended into heaven. That is impossible also. How can a physical body go into the sky. Where would it go? We don’t live in the ancient three tiered universe. We know that heaven is not up in space somewhere and neither is hell at the core of planet earth. We are using earthly language to describe spiritual truth here. We use spatial language – up there and down there - descending and ascending – to refer to spiritual dimensions. Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. The traditional language says that he sits at the right hand of God the Father. Verse 9 says, “ Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name…” So the parabola of grace is complete. Jesus has returned to his heavenly place.
II. But our passage is about more than just what Jesus did. It is about what we do. That is my second point. To carry on this theme of mathematics, I am calling this point the EQUATION OF SALVATION. But I am not going to be giving you any algebraic formula. What is important is that we follow the path that Jesus has already taken – the descent and the ascent.
Paul starts in our passage: “ 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus ….” We are to have the same mind as Christ. The path that he has trod, we are to trod. This attitude that he had is to be our attitude. The mind that he had is to be our mind.
We are to take this admonition very seriously. Being a Christian is not just admiring Jesus. It is not just having him as our model and example. It is to have the mind of Christ. There is another passage where Paul uses the same phrase. He says in 1 Corinthians: “For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” We are to be Christlike in our thinking, our attitude and in our behavior.
This means that just as Christ humbled himself, we are to humble ourselves. Christ got off his throne in heaven to come to earth to take the role of a servant. So are we to do. To get off our high horse, as my mother used to say. When I was a kid and was acting arrogantly, she would scold me and tell me to get off my high horse. I never understood what horse she was talking about, but that was the expression. To humble ourselves means to get off our high horse, get off our high thrones that we sit on judging everyone and everything, and humble ourselves and take the form of a servant – to be a servant of God and a servant of others. That is what the church is about. We are to be a community that serves God and serves others in the name of God. That is our mission.
If we think we are better than anyone else we do not have the mind of Christ. If we think we are more righteous then others because we are Christians then we do not have the mind of Christ. Even on Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem he did not come in on a white horse as a mighty king. The gospels describe his attitude as lowly riding on a donkey, and not even an adult donkey but a foal. He could not have appeared any more humbly and still made his point on Palm Sunday that he was Messiah. We are to have this same mind.
I think that as a church it means that we go to people rather than expect them to come to us. A lot of churches want people to come to them. But Jesus came to us, and called his disciples to go out to others. Our mission is to go to the people outside of these walls. And when we do, then people will want to come in to see what makes us go out and serve others. It is humility that draws people. We naturally resent the proud and haughty and arrogant. We are attracted to the humble and loving and caring. An arrogant Christian is the worst advertisement for the gospel. And I have known my share of arrogant Christians, and I am not innocent of exhibiting my own type of arrogance as well. But the mind of Christ is to empty ourselves of ourselves. My mother also used to regularly tell her kids that we were ‘full of yourself.” It is a good expression. We are often full of ourselves. The solution is to empty ourselves as Christ emptied himself and took the role of the servant.
Our passage says: “9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” One of the ways that we humble ourselves and empty ourselves is by exalting Christ. We don’t humble ourselves by putting ourselves down; that is false humility. We don’t humble ourselves by denigrating ourselves or thinking we are worthless. That is just low self-esteem. We humble ourselves by acknowledging that there is one higher than ourselves, and putting ourselves under him by calling him Lord. When we bow the knee to Jesus Christ we humble ourselves.
And Jesus tells us that those who humble themselves will be exalted. And our ultimate exaltation is heaven, the end point of this parabola of grace. We don’t get to heaven by climbing the ladder to heaven - getting everything right, putting all our ducks in a row – right doctrine, right behavior, right worship, - get everything right and we are righteous and our reward is heaven. No, that is self-righteousness. That is not the equation of salvation. We are exalted in God’s eyes when we have the mind of Christ and humble ourselves as Christ humbled himself. Then “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
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