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\u201cIn your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage\u2026\u201d (Philippians 2:5,6).

Today, we begin our reflections on what is believed to be one of the first songs composed by the early church. After Pentecost, the Christians in Jerusalem continued to worship with the Jews at the temple, singing the psalms of the Old Testament and possibly other Jewish worship songs. But soon, these Christians began to add songs about Jesus. Historians believe that verses 6-11 is one of those songs. Paul quotes this song in his exhortation on relationships within the church.

With this hymn we are invited into the mystery of our God. It poses questions such as: Who is God? What is his nature? What is the relationship between the Father and the Son? Long ago, the church began giving answers to these questions. You can find them in the ancient Nicene and Athanasius creeds. It must be noted that the church has always added a caution to these creeds: this is our best effort to say something truthful about God. Our human minds and our human languages and our human philosophical concepts cannot give full expression to who God is. These things are only approximations, shadowy reflections of the reality that is our personal God.

And so, we tread carefully, cautiously, remembering that now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; later, we shall see face to face. Now we know in part; later we shall know fully\u2026 (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12).

We are invited to overhear the thought process that preceded the divine incarnation. Further, there are hints that the opening words of the hymn draw a contrast between Jesus and the first humans in the Garden of Eden. It says there that the serpent tempted them with the words, \u2018you will be like God\u2019 (Genesis 3:5). And then it says, \u201cWhen the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it\u201d (6).

In contrast, Jesus, who was and is in very nature, God, choose not to hang onto this for his own advantage. Notice how the fruit in the Garden was seen as something that could be of benefit. It would give Adam and Eve something more. It would elevate. It didn\u2019t, of course, but that was the vision the tempter planted in their minds. In the hymn, we sing of Jesus, the second Adam, choosing not to hang on to his elevated status for his own sake or for his own promotion.

Commenting on this hymn, N.T. Wright, wrote, \u201cOver against the standard picture of Oriental despots, who understand their position as something to be used for their own advantage, Jesus understands his position to mean self-negation." Does this mean that to be divine, as our God reveals it, does not mean getting but giving? Is divinity properly expressed in self-giving love? Was the hymn writer picturing Jesus with a towel around his waist, washing his disciple\u2019s feet? Does Jesus wash feet because this is who he is?

I think something like this is going on here. The Roman centurion might have seen this as Jesus died, causing him to cry out, \u201cSurely this man was the son of God!\u201d? (Mark 15:39). The Son of God, who from all eternity is equal with God the Father, understands that the best way to express being God is through a cradle, a towel, and a cross.

Again, N.T. Wright: "Against the age-old attempts of human beings to make God in their own arrogant, self-glorying image, Calvary reveals the truth about what it means to be God."

We will have more to say about this hymn. For today, if all this is true, if this is divinity and if we are made in the image of God, how does this impact how we should live? Is this how we should define what it means to be truly human? Are we closest to what we were created to be when we empty ourselves and take the form of a servant? Is this why the accumulation of stuff and status is so deeply unfulfilling? Do not those who lose themselves in creative self-giving appear so much happier and fulfilled?