Heroes. We love heroes. We all have heroes, although it seems like they’re harder to find these days. I think it depends on where you look for your heroes. If you’re looking in the sports or entertainment world, you will find plenty of bright stars. But you won’t find many who can stand the test of time very well.
Here are some heroes for you. Mother Theresa. Gandhi. Nelson Mandela. Albert Schweitzer. Dietrich Bonheoffer. What do these people have in common? Well, for one thing, they certainly didn’t plan to be heroes. They didn’t direct their lives in order to become famous or even loved. These are lives which were filled with actions based upon principle and ethics of the highest order. These are men and women who lived in poverty, were subjected to ridicule, even put to death. They saw nothing particularly unusual about the way they lived their lives. Their path was laid out in front of them and they took it. I suspect if we interviewed them, we might find them surprised that so many others chose paths that would take them away from the Promised Land.
And yet, that is the story of mankind. The great majority of us spend our lives getting and spending, with little regard for the appetite we have for consumption. We consume everything at voracious rates. That is not the way of heroes. They consume little. They are in the giving business.
We get it honestly, this desire for consuming everything. Adam and Eve got the ball rolling in the Garden of Eden. They had it all. But then Satan came along and got their greed going. There are a lot of ways to explain the story of Adam and Eve. One simple way is that they wanted to know what God knew. They wanted to be their own Gods. Their appetite to have more, to be autonomous even in the face of their Creator, changed the world. Those who would be God instead became creatures subject to pain, to hardship, to doubt, to selfishness and greed. They lost their chance to be hero and heroine because they wanted to be God.
Today’s Scripture passage is often referred to as the “hymn of Christ.” It traces in these few very poetic verses Jesus’ preexistence, incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God. It points us to a model of humility, selflessness, servanthood and love.
Here is the only time in history that a human being actually can aspire to know what God knows, to do what God does. He is Jesus, the God-Man. For once there stood a man who could calm storms, tame the wind, heal the lame and feed multitudes with a few loaves of bread. For once, there came into our midst a man who was also divine.
He did all those mighty acts. No one should rightly deny the many miracles performed by Jesus. And yet, he did nothing…that’s right…nothing for himself or for his personal gain. Paul says that Jesus was in the form of God. Most certainly he was, for he was with God in the beginning. He was the God, the Son, the second person of the Trinity. Although the divine part of Jesus, the part that was fully God, was certainly equal with God, the Father, the human part of Jesus, the part that was fully Man, refused to use that divinity to gain some advantage on earth. Paul says that Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” In a sense, this is the most miraculous characteristic of Jesus. He was obedient to his…and our, Heavenly Father from the beginning to the end of his life here on earth. Not once did he reach for himself. It was always about us, about his love for us…and about obeying the Will of God. He allowed himself to be treated as the least among us, while he treated each of us as if we were ourselves kings and queens.
Let’s talk about Jesus. He was the greatest of all time. He could have KO’d Mohammed Ali. He could have won American Idol. He would never have lost on Jeopardy. He could have taken every gold medal at the Olympics. Instead, he washed his disciples’ feet. He could have been King, or Emperor. Instead he owned but one garment and one pair of sandals.
He is the most powerful figure in all history, and yet he frames his kingship in the form of a donkey ride. Although influential people like Nichodemus look for ways to bring him into the limelight, he chooses to dine with sinners and tax collectors. Paul says he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.”
He made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. I know what Paul means and I couldn’t agree more. But I need to rephrase Paul so that I can grasp the significance of those words. I think Paul is pointing out to the Philippians that the vocation of servanthood is part and parcel of what it means to understand Jesus’ love for us, that the practice of unselfishness is the path that Jesus chose not only for himself, but for those who would follow him.
The Greek word for servant is douloj (doulos). Not surprisingly, it also means “slave.” He made himself nothing, taking the form of…a slave. What could be lower? A slave was a piece of property. And yet, that is what Paul represents—accurately—to us, as what Jesus, the Son of God, became. He became nothing. Isn’t that something!
In the 1940’s, the comedy team of Abbott and Costello did this great routine about baseball. The base runners consisted of a fella named “Who” on First Base, another fella named “What” on second, and a third guy called “I Don’t Know” on third. Even if you’ve never heard the gag, you can imagine how confusing it was to describe the base runners to someone. Costello asks “Who’s on first” and Abbott answers “Absolutely.” You get the idea.
It might seem to be a gag at first to talk about our Savior as someone who aspires to be no one, as someone who becomes nothing in order to be something. In that life and in that example, we see him humble himself. How far will he go? Paul says, as we now know, “to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In that life, Christ elevates nothingness to the point of greatness. Selflessness becomes the aspiration of those who would follow Jesus, for in his so-called nothingness, he has become everything, certainly everything that really matters to the Christian.
It is the greatest love. Jesus laid down his life for you and me. He laid down his life for your sons and your daughters. He was obedient even unto the last measure of devotion. And his reward, says Paul, was to be bestowed the name above all names, the name to which every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth…shall bow, the name to which every tongue shall confess…that the name of Jesus Christ…is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
So I have my hero. I hope he is yours too. Today, on a Sunday not so long ago, he rode on purpose toward a hanging tree. His last corporate act the night before his death was to serve and bathe his friends.
When it comes to how to act in this life, our Savior shows us the way. Nothing…is everything.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment