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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
September 14, 2022
Feast of the Holy Cross
The Invitatory
Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
The earth is the Lord’s for he made it: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Philippians 2:5-11
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
This portion of the Letter to the Philippians is commonly called the “Christ Hymn.” It is the oldest expression of who Christ is in the Christian scripture. Its simplicity and beauty are to my mind more like poetry speaking for the Christ who descends to the humiliation of the human condition, and then is vindicated after the crucifixion with a resurrection that guarantees his divine worth. While this interpretation is not wrong—these movements from godly equality to human emptying to suffering and death to resurrection and restoration do exist in the text.
To come at the text from another direction, we could focus more closely on the social and political context of the Roman Empire at the time that the New Testament was written. Those in power during the Roman Empire erected stone monuments carved with images celebrating the empire’s power over the people it had enslaved. The emperors are depicted god-like in their triumphs. In today’s context, think of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un.
In some ways, the Christ hymn explicitly rejects such grotesque celebrations of power. The hymn celebrates Jesus Christ as one who is in the form of God and is equal to God. Contrary to Roman images, the poem states clearly that divine power does not include the right to dominate and subdue other people. In fact, the Christ hymn argues that self-emptying itself is powerful. It is difficult to explain and understand, but it is powerful.
Jesus’ death and resurrection reject our human displays of power and violence precisely because the divine was present in the worst kind of violence, fear, stigmatization, and brute show of force. Violence, fear, and death are not God’s plan. The good news comes in the sure knowledge that Jesus’ equality with God does not take the form of a kingly ruler or an imperial victor. Jesus, Christ, the one equal to God, assumes the form of the most humble and seemingly powerless one.
It’s a pretty radical idea — God descending into human flesh. These verses from Philippians call us to see — again, maybe for the first time — how radical this God is and what that means for our lives: Jesus emptied himself, becoming a servant, in order to fully inhabit humanity, to fully incorporate human life into divine life. This God loves and longs for us so much that God enters fully into human life — not putting on a human form for a day but submitting to all the indignities and joys of human life, including death.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory
for ever and ever. Amen.
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