Covid19: April 10 - The Way to Life

Lent has not gone the way we expected. Not at all! We began our journey in the wilderness, never realizing what unknown territory we would be entering together. That doesn't isn't going to change between now and Easter. This year, we won't be gathering on Easter Sunday in packed houses of worship with trumpets and choirs and lilies. 

And yet, Easter will come for us, nonetheless. On April 12, from the seclusion of our homes, we will peer into the void of an empty tomb and hear the Good News: Jesus is not here. He has risen! He has risen indeed. Alleluia! But before we get to Easter, we have one last stop along the way. We call it Good Friday. Do you ever wonder what’s so good about it?

For many people, what makes the crucifixion good is knowing that Jesus died for their sins. And while that’s one way of making sense of Jesus’ death on the cross that has resonated with people of faith for a long time, it’s not the only way to make sense of it. And, to be honest, it's not a perspective that resonates a whole lot with me.

I prefer to consider the Jesus story through the lens of this passage from Philippians:

⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
       ⁶who, though he was in the form of God,
      did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
      And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself
      and became obedient to the point of death — 
      even death on a cross.
⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him
      and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus
      every knee should bend,
      in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
      to the glory of God the Father.  (Philippians 2:5-11)

The story of the Passion begins with a cheering crowd celebrating Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and it ends by recounting the story of a crowd shouting “Crucify him!” and his death on a cross. Talk about a downward spiral! That’s the Jesus we read about in the second chapter of Philippians. He was in the form of God but didn’t exploit that. Instead, he humbled himself by taking on the form of a slave.

That word humbled is a key to understanding who Jesus was and what he was about. Is being humiliated and humbling yourself the same thing? Although they both come from the word humus, which means dirt, there is a difference. To be humiliated is something that someone else imposes upon you. They treat you like dirt. But to humble yourself is to make yourself like dirt. When you’re humiliated, someone else has the power. But when you humble yourself, you are the one with the power. Jesus’ was not stripped of his power. He showed his power by emptying himself. It was his doing; it was his choice to take on the form of a slave.

 A slave, like the one who would get down on his hands and knees and wash his disciples’ dirty feet. A slave, like the one who would be nailed to a cross. Wealthy people were not executed on crosses. This was the form of execution reserved for slaves. In Jesus’ life and in his death, he didn’t just take on human form, but he identified with the lowest of the low. How often do we consider this when we look at the figure of Christ crucified?

We tend to personalize this act, focusing on what Jesus has done for us on a cross. And we miss the fact that he identified with the outcasts and the untouchables. He became as a slave. His death on the cross was an act of solidarity with the lowest members of society. To have the mind of Christ, as this ancient hymn recorded in Philippians suggests, is to empty yourself and identify with the ones Jesus himself identified with in his life and in his death. It may be more comforting to focus on ourselves and the way that Jesus died for us. But there’s more to his death than that. It’s not all about us.

 Now, none of us needs to go to a cross the way that Jesus did; that’s not what these verses from Philippians are suggesting. What they are suggesting is that we have the mind of Christ. That we adopt a pattern for our lives that follows the pattern of Jesus’ life. It’s a way of life that’s radically different than the life the dominant culture around us would have us live. We’re more than the façade we present to others. We’re more than our cars and our jobs. Our value is not measured by popularity or awards.

It’s not about acquiring. It’s about emptying. Like giving up all the trappings of our lives and removing ourselves from the world to save the lives of others. Whether we’re Christians or not, it’s a very Christlike thing that we’re doing right now as a society. Jesus teaches us that it’s only in emptying ourselves that we can be filled with God’s grace. This is a radical way of being in the world. It means thumbing our noses at the values of the world around us and living the Jesus way. That is, the way of the cross.

Although it may bring us great comfort to look at the figure of Jesus dying on the cross with the assurance that he died to save us from our sins, that he died for each of us personally, there is so much more going on there.  The figure of Jesus dying on a cross is a living/dying demonstration of his central teaching for the meaning of discipleship: “If any would be my disciples, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For whoever gains their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will gain it.” That’s the way of the Cross. And if this time of distancing ourselves from one another and denying ourselves doesn’t convince us that the way of the Cross is the way to life, I don’t know what will.