Palm Sunday: Epistle, Philippians 2:5-11

Holy ground. Whenever we open our Bibles our hands are moving the soil of holy ground. But the epistle lesson for this weekend? Wow! Almost everyone agrees what Paul composes here is one of the earliest of Christian hymns. And the subject matter is sublime. God has become a man. Willingly. Fully. And yet never gives up an ounce of his God-ness. Verse 8 says, “He humbled himself.” Not forced. Not pressed beyond his own desire but in his willingness for us to see a real human, the world’s only real human up close, he became what we are minus sin. 

He’s a great example alright. The passage begins by exhorting us to follow his lead. And while the NT does that over and over, in this spot, the primary directive is this: follow someone who is willing to go all the way down. No exceptions and no excuses. Imagine. God becoming man. Creator becoming creature. Composer becoming the notes on the staff. Again: Wow!

And just what is the end game of this descent and the obedient display of God’s choices through his children? Just this: “ … at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11). That gets me excited. You? I can hardly wait. Every knee? Every tongue? All those through history who have longed to do it and those who pledged they never would. EVERY!

So sing this earliest of hymns. Make up your own tune and don’t be frightened because the words don’t rhyme. Luther said, “Certainly you will not release a stronger incense or other repellent against the devil than to be engaged by God’s commandments and words, and speak, sing, or think them” (Large Catechism, Longer Preface 10). Lift up your voice and sing!