Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)
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The Gospel message is full of great, paradoxical reversals.\xa0 Kings are thrown down and the humble are exulted.\xa0 The rich go hungry and the poor are lifted up.\xa0 Those who lose their lives find it.\xa0 The last become first.\xa0 And, perhaps most glaring of all: the dead are raised to life.
Jesus himself is the paradigm of all of these great reversals.\xa0 He is the one who humbled himself to nothing, became poor, and gave up his life unto death.\xa0 But as Pastor Michael began to suggest yesterday: this was not a transaction or a quid-pro-quo.\xa0 It was not as if Jesus, simply by virtue of bowing low would automatically get lifted up.\xa0
This gets tricky because of our hang ups with high theological ideas like \u201cpredestination\u201d and \u201cGod\u2019s plan.\u201d\xa0 But these concepts iron out the wrinkles of the Biblical story a bit too neatly sometimes.\xa0 I do not think that the Bible verses pointing to God\u2019s perfections intend to cancel out God\u2019s responsiveness within the relationships that he has with his people.
Jesus, in humbling himself to nothing and submitting his life, in trust, to the Father to whom he commends his spirit\u2014is acting out in real life the faith of the Psalms.\xa0 The psalms speak often of entrusting their cause to God.\xa0 Under threat of death and vast evil, the psalmists give themselves over to the judgement of God.\xa0 Take psalm 26, for example, where the Psalmist says \u201cvindicate me, Lord, for I have led a blameless life.\u201d\xa0 This language of faith is all over the psalms: 7, 17, 24, 54, 69, 135, and any number of others.\xa0 Job comes to mind as well.
As Jesus humbles himself to death: he entrusts himself to the Father.\xa0 And then all Creation holds its breath.\xa0 Will God respond, or will he remain silent?\xa0 How will the Father judge Jesus\u2019 case?\xa0 Will the ruling of the Romans and the Religious Leaders win the day in court, or will their verdict be reversed by God\u2019s higher court?\xa0
Indeed the higher court takes the case and God\u2019s justice determines Jesus\u2019 innocence.\xa0 He is vindicated from all charges of wrongdoing. \xa0His punishment is reversed and he is raised to life.\xa0 But the ruling of God\u2019s Supreme Court goes still further: the Kings of earth that had made this unjust ruling against the Son\u2014representative of all unjust rulings\u2014are themselves displaced as rulers, and Jesus the righteous one is given their thrones.\xa0 He is the righteous one: the true King.\xa0 Not only that, the religious leaders who abused their positions are deposed from office, and Jesus himself replaces them as the true and perfect High Priest who ministers forever.
The invitation to submit our cause and our lives in humility before God in the way of Jesus\u2019 cross joins our lives to this journey to the courtroom of God we where submit all our desires for vengeance and control to God, the judge, as Jesus did.\xa0 Somehow in this act of humbling ourselves, God raises us to the new life of Jesus whereby we learn new ways of trust, forgiveness, mercy, and love. \xa0And so it is that the one who loses their life, does indeed find it.\xa0 So it is that our relationships with one another are transformed by the mindset of Christ Jesus.
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