Sermon for 4/2/23: Palmarum, the Sunday of the Passion

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A Servant Exalted in Humility

Philippians 2:5-11

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we remember our Lord’s sufferings and death at the hands of the very people He came to save. There is something about the sufferings of Jesus that makes us want to look away. We love the praises of Palm Sunday, and we will eagerly come to joyfully celebrate Easter. But Maundy Thursday and especially Good Friday, the darker days of our Lord’s suffering, will not be as well attended. It’s more than just the desire to skip services held in the middle of the week. The truth is, we want to see a triumphant king, not a suffering servant or a bleeding lamb.

St. Paul wrote that Jesus chose to be a suffering servant. He could have remained as He was before the Creation of the world: the glorious Son of God who had no flesh and no sufferings. Even when He became Man, Jesus was still God, so He did not have to suffer. He could have remained in the form of God. But He chose the form of a servant. He chose weakness, pain, and death.

We are approaching the day when God died. That is the offense of the cross, where Jesus, who is God, laid down His life. God by nature cannot die because He is eternal and immortal. Nor should God die, because He is everything good and loving and beautiful. The death of Christ is the death of God, and mankind does not want to face up to that horrible reality.

Through the centuries, people have tried to lessen the offense of the cross by saying that Jesus did not truly suffer there, that He only seemed to suffer. Others have said that Jesus was truly Man, but He was not truly God, and so God did not die. Others have gone even further, saying that Jesus was not only merely a Man, but He was also a sinner like us. Sinners die every day, so there is no offense in a sinner's death. But against all those false views of Christ, St. Paul declares that Christ was “in the form of God.” He fully possessed the majesty and holiness of the true God. He had the power and knowledge and immortality of God.

But Jesus made Himself of no reputation. He took the form of a servant by ceasing to use His powers as God. This is not to say that Jesus only appeared to be a Man, as if it was an illusion. Jesus was really and truly a human being, like us in every way except sin. Jesus did not become a sinner in His life, although in His death He became sin for us. That is the purpose of this Passion of Christ. He took on the form of a servant so that He could die a servant's death, to pay for the sins of the world.

Christ never ceased to be God, not even on the cross. But before His resurrection, He did not use His full powers as God. At times, Jesus did not know certain facts, even though He could have used His unlimited knowledge as God. Sometimes, Jesus was tired or hungry or thirsty, even though God by nature is never tired or hungry or thirsty. God does not bleed; God does not suffer; God does not die. But Christ, who is true God and true Man, bled and died for you, because He took the form of a servant.

When He suffered and died, the sinless God died in human flesh. The flesh of a sinner would achieve nothing. The death of an ordinary man would mean little to the world. But Christ Jesus laid down the flesh and blood of God on the cross, and so His death is everything. The cross—the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, God incarnate—towers over every event in history. On the cross, Jesus claimed solidarity with sinful mankind. He willingly made Himself one of us, even though He was holy and sinless. He was one of us, even though His divinity was unimaginably far above us. On the cross, Jesus embraced all of mankind, so that all of our sins and the weight of our guilt fell upon Him.

He came in humility to serve us by carrying the heavy burdens that belonged to us: the burdens of our sin, our death, and our damnation. But these burdens were not His to carry. He did not need to suffer. He chose to suffer. Christ Jesus, the only Man who could choose not to die, chose the worst death possible to save us. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, when He could have ridden upon the backs of angels. That is the humility of Christ. That is the form of a servant. Jesus rides into Jerusalem to present Himself to God as the sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. He lowers Himself to the level of a dumb animal whose only purpose is to be slaughtered. That is the form of a servant. The Son of Man, who looks like nothing but the pathetic son of a carpenter, is actually the great God who protects and defends the world, even when that world turns upon Him and kills Him. That is the form of a servant.

At this very moment, Christ remains a Man and also remains God. That is how He will be forever. But He is no longer in the form of a servant. Now He is highly exalted. Now saints and angels in heaven bow before the glorious Son of God, who shines before them in the unveiled form of God. Even now, we on earth mimic those above. Many saints here below bow the knee at His presence when He comes in bread and wine. Many bow our heads at the name of Jesus, for this is the name of the Lord of life who conquered sin and Satan. This is the name of the Lord, who freed you and me from our own death by dying Himself. One day, all knees will bow and all tongues will confess, whether they like it or not. Even Satan's black tongue will be forced to confess that Jesus is Lord.

So all creation praises this Lord and confesses His name, because He has suffered for you. He has died in your place. He took the form of a servant so that He who is God in human flesh could lay down His life on the cross for you. With heaven and earth, we give glory to His great name which is above every name: the name of Jesus Christ, Lord and God. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The peace which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.