March 28, 2021 – Palm Sunday Text: Philippians 2:5-11
Dear Friends in Christ,
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you see things in a negative light or a positive light? Some folks are completely one way or another. Most of us are a combination. I can be pessimistic sometimes about the teams I cheer for. But as last weekend showed that is also reality. I think I am a realist. I’ve seen too much. My nickname at the seminary was Dr. Reality. I am also an optimist. I am optimistic about the Lord’s Church and church work and the Lord’s people and our children. These are all blessings in my life and have been for years. As Christians depending on what it is we can be either.
This week we are celebrating has elements of both. Jesus rides into Jerusalem in optimism and cheering and by Friday it is “Crucify” and killing. We Christians must have some pessimism in us if we like to see our Savior treated this way. Then we have services to celebrate it! But we have reasons for calling it “good” Friday.
On Easter we will be accused of foolish optimism – believing a myth that Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead. Get a life. Look around at the world, my friend. What is your Savior doing about it?
A blessed Holy Week to you. It is not about a glass half empty or a glass half full; it’s about Jesus emptying Himself in order to make us full. That’s what St. Paul in our Epistle, teaches us really happens in these holy days.
“BY EMPTYING HIMSELF, JESUS FILLS YOU”
We are commanded to empty ourselves by following Jesus’ example, but when you try, you just come up, well . . . empty. Can we have the mind of Christ? Perfect love. Humble as He rides into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. A mind of perfect obedience that allowed himself to be arrested and tried, tortured and killed according to the Father’s will. Love that serves others.
We strive for that but usually ending up serving ourselves. We don’t like to look on the dark side or be pessimistic but this is the way our sinful nature works. We come up empty when trying to empty ourselves.
When Jesus emptied Himself, He was exalted to the full. In Jesus’ state of humiliation He didn’t always use His divine powers on earth. He emptied Himself as a baby, like us, inside Mary. He put Himself under the Law in our place. He became nothing in the form of a servant to become obedient to the point of death. He could have walked away; He could have destroyed His enemies. He could have…but He didn’t because He loves you and your soul too much.
When Jesus emptied Himself it did not leave Him empty. His name is above every name. Every knee bows before Him. Every tongue confesses Him as Lord. Jesus now and forever uses His divine attributes. We call this His state of exaltation. That’s not half full. It’s full. It’s not foolish optimism, it’s true.
What Jesus did counts for us. We still can’t empty ourselves of our selfishness as we ought. But Jesus did. We still can’t live as humbly as the Savior did. But we don’t have to because He paid for our sins.
We share in Jesus’s exaltation. For all eternity we wear His name. When we kneel before Him we don’t do it in shame but in faith and joy. With the angels, our tongues will forever sing his praise. Knowing that God will exalt us fully with Christ even fills us with love that can humble itself in service to others – with a mind like Christ.
The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived and preached in Barcelona, Spain for a time. On an Easter afternoon he was taken to a bullfight. When he first observed it he was shocked at the gruesome elements and how the spectators seemed to enjoy the blood and cruelty.
The second time he went he started to see the allure of it. Ever the theologian, He wrote this in a letter to his wife Sabine: “I have never seen the swing from ‘Hosanna’ to ‘Crucify’ more graphically evoked than in the virtually insane way the crowd goes berserk when the bullfighter makes a turn, and they immediately follow this with an equally insane howling and whistling when some mishap occurs. The momentary character of this mass mood goes so far that they applaud the bull and against the bullfighter if, for example, the later proves to be cowardly and – quite understandably – his courage fails him for a moment.”
We are stepping into Holy Week. What do you observe? Isn’t it great that we can be optimistic? Whether you’ve experienced it for 10 years or 90 years you know who triumphs. His courage will not fail. The charging sin, death, Satan, and hell will not do Him in. His humble obedience puts a spear through their heart. They lay dead in the spiritual arena. By emptying Himself, He fills you.
Amen.