Saved to Be Sent

Devotional Reflection for the Sunday of the Passion (4/5/2020)

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Let us pray:  “Sovereign God, you have established your rule in the human heart through the servanthood of Jesus Christ.  By your Spirit, keep us in the joyful procession of those who with their tongues confess Jesus as Lord and with their lives praise him as Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”

A reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, chapter 2: 

⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.

Have you ever found yourself driving in the wrong direction on a one-way highway?

I have--and it was one of the most frightening, disorienting experiences of my life!!

Early on we all learn to “go with the flow”—to follow the crowd and head in the same direction everyone else is going.

In Genesis chapter 3 we learn how our first parents were tempted to believe that their path should involve leaving the earth and climbing up, up, up to God.   “You will not die,” their Tempter told them…”if you eat the fruit God told you not to eat, you will not die but you will become like God!”

That’s what all pick up on, early in life….that we’re traveling a one-way road that takes us upward, ever upward, up to God, up to grab a hold of the godlike powers we long for.

Here in our reading from Philippians 2, though, we witness a different road-- a stark reversal of what the Tempter told our first parents in Genesis 3.

What’s revealed to us here in Philippians 2 is another path, a path that reverses all the arrows, a path that shuns grabbing and hanging on to whatever we lay our hands on….

This alternative route is a path of letting go, emptying ourselves, and traveling downward….down to creaturely life, down to service, down to giving ourselves away in caring for others and for this good earth.

On Passion Sunday we behold how this alternative route, this path of“downward mobility” is precisely the way our Suffering Savior traveled, going against the grain for us, setting aside all his divine prerogatives for us, pouring himself out for us and for all creation.

This One saves us and redeems the whole creation….this Jesus saves us in order to send us back into the world, walking along his amazing road of “downward mobility” which we come to realize is the life we were always meant to live.

My friends, as we live into this global pandemic—we desperately need to hear of this alternative road, this Jesus road, which is our only hope.

Jesus saves us, you see, in order to send us--to send us in service to our neighbors and in tender care for this good earth.   Jesus saves us in order to send us (in the words of Martin Luther) to send us as “little Christs” in our troubled, threatened world.

Now, I realize that that might seem to go against the grain of what we’re hearing these days.   We’re asked to live apart from one another in order to defeat the coronavirus—so how can we go down, down, down to serve our neighbors?

Well, it’s happening, my friends, despite our need to practice physical distancing from one another…we still see people like us serving one another.  

Pay attention to the news and to social media, and you’ll catch glimpses of Christ still moving down to those in deepest need….

You’ll see little Christs sewing face masks in the homes of people “sheltering in place”

You’ll see little Christs writing out checks or making online donations to the local homeless shelter or soup kitchen or nursing home.

You’ll hear little Christs on the telephone, calling up friends, checking in with neighbors, especially those who live alone….

And you’ll witness little Christs kneeling six feet apart from one another in a hospital parking lot—medical personnel, praying for the strength and protection they need to keep fighting the coronavirus.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is still saving and sending us all, even now when we feel stuck and useless at home….Our Lord Jesus transcends the rules of quarantine under which we must live for a season….now, even now, Christ is still at work through all his “little Christs” like you and like me.

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.    

Please pray with me:   “Gracious God, shake us up in this time when we need to live apart from one another.  Show us how even behind the doors of our homes you are still calling us to be your little Christs in this hurting world.   Heal those who are ill and comfort those who are grieving.  Guide, protect and defend all the front-line soldiers in our war against the coronavirus….and use us to be your hands, feet and voice in this aching world.    All these things—and whatever else you see that we need—we ask for, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord who saves us to send us.  Amen."