Once again this morning I found myself trying to wriggle out of a text I assigned myself several months ago for this Sunday, Palm Sunday. I had elected to preach on the epistle lessons for Lent and to carry that plan over through Holy Week, including Easter. Yet here I was today, going over Philippians 2:5-11 and wondering whether I could find something fresh to say or should simply repeat a sermon from not too long ago in 2017.
It finally struck me that following through on that prior commitment to a text, even in regard to the preliminary title, “Obedient,” would reflect the spirit of Jesus’ own submission to the Cross, the submission and obedience which the passage itself celebrates.
The word “obedient” on which I focus is in verse 8, “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross.” It’s problematic in our time for a variety of reasons. One reason which not many may notice is that a theological concept called the “active obedience of Christ” will quickly plunge one down a rabbit hole of controversy in Reformed theology. So I will be quick to say here that the focus in this passage is on Jesus’ obedience to God’s plan of salvation through the Cross and Resurrection, rather than on His perfect obedience to the Law.
Another problematic feature of discussing Jesus’ obedience is the connection in verse 7 to his “taking the form of a slave…” I haven’t verified it, but I imagine this text might have been one of those Bible texts misused in the antebellum United States to inculcate obedience in enslaved people at that time. There is probably much to say about such abuse of human beings via the abuse of Scripture. But suffice it for now to say that Jesus’ submission and obedience to the Cross was wholly voluntary and thus different from involuntary servitude and suffering inflicted by oppressors in any age.
Nonetheless, the opening, verse 5, of the text clearly sets up Jesus’ obedience as an example, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” It follows a call in verses 1-4 of the chapter for Christians to live together in love, to eschew ambition and self-promotion, and, in verse 4, to “look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Which of course is exactly what Jesus did as He emptied Himself of His rightful privilege and honor as the Son of God and took on human nature.
In verse 9 our text shifts from humility and obedience in suffering to the resulting exaltation of Jesus, who receives “the name that is above every name.” You could say the text jumps from Good Friday to Easter, from the Cross to the Resurrection. Palm Sunday itself reflects this tension and transition, sort of in reverse. We move from the exaltation of the entry into Jerusalem toward the Cross at the end of the week. Yet the ultimate destination is Jesus rising again in glory on Easter.
Palm Sunday, then, is a good time to reflect on how we reflect the mind of Christ in and among us, setting aside our own individual interests and personal glory and seeking that of others. The hopeful note is that such obedience and sacrifice leads to exaltation. In the words of Eleonore Stump in her book Atonement, contrary to ordinary expectations, suffering can be the occasion for human flourishing when it is experienced through the grace of God in Christ.