Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity 27 09 26
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Exodus 17.1-7
NEW TESTAMENT READING: Philippians 2.1-13
GOSPEL Matthew 21.23-32
We heard amazing words in the readings today. Who is the role model for us, who is it we should try to imitate. We all have role models who are our inspiration and usually it is the person who fascinated us or inspired us. It may be someone who made a huge impact in our lives.
Paul is urging Christian believers to have a special role model, Jesus Christ, Son of God and saviour of the world. Paul tells the church that God is at work in each and every one of us. God who was at work in Jesus is also at work in each of us, which is quite an extraordinary calling. The way we can offer ourselves to be used by God is to imitate Jesus Christ who is the initiator, pioneer and perfector of faith. We heard what Paul said to the Philippians, Let the same mind be in you that of Christ Jesus. Paul invies Christian believers to have the same attitude and the same mindset Jesus had. Having said this Paul goes on to say what was in the mind of Jesus Christ.
He was in the form of God but did not regard equality with God. He is the Son of God with extraordinary holiness, with extraordinary divine powers to heal, to teach, to drive away the demons, to challenge authority, to raise the dead back to life but he was there like anyone else. He never used his powers to meet his needs, to protect himself. In the wilderness he was fasting and praying forty days and forty nights, even the devil told Jesus, you can turn these stones into bread why are you starving like this. He was a man for others and he was God who has chosen to incarnate as a human being and he lived as a fully human being.
Paul then uses an amazing expression, Jesus emptied himself. In theological language this is known as Kenosis. Jesus emptied himself. That is how Jesus incarnated as a human being, he deprived himself of his heavenly glory, his creative power and he deprived himself of his omnipresence and became a human being. He emptied himself willingly and voluntarily and took upon himself the human flesh, subjecting himself to the human nature to become the new Adam, a new human being. He emptied himself to show us that it is not necessary for a human being to be enslaved to sin. Paul says that Jesus emptied himself to the point of being a slave in total submission to God.
Jesus humbled himself to be a human being, he lived in the blessed womb of the blessed virgin Mary, grew up in the home of a carpenter and when he began his ministry moved away from his family and went about places with new friends who were his disciples. He humbled himself to silently face ridicule, accusations, Never using his powers to protect himself from the challenges posed by others.
The second quality Paul wants us to see in Jesus is the obedience of Jesus to the will of God the father. Jesus in total obedience subjected himself to the will of God that he lay down his life on the cross of calvary, to suffer torture, ridicule and even death on the cross.
God had raised him from the dead and now is exalted in the heavens, every tongue shall proclaim his glory and every knee shall bow before him and he is going to come to judge the living and the dead.
Every time we receive the body and blood of Christ, it is our prayer to Jesus, bless me with your mind that I may share in your humility and in your obedience.