Brad Sullivan
Palm Sunday, Year B
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
John 12:12-16
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1 – 15:47
Palm Sunday, as we do every year on Palm Sunday, we get to hear the stories of Jesus’ seeming triumph as he rides into Jerusalem with throngs of people shouting his praises, and we get to hear about Jesus’ seeming defeat in his death on the cross. What I’d like to focus on today is Jesus’ humility in his life and death on the cross, and the way Jesus’ humility shows us the depth of God’s love for us.
Recently, I was having a conversation with a non-Christian about the Christian faith, and this gentleman had many questions about our faith; he was truly trying to understand what the Christian faith is. One question he raised was, why is Earth so important that God would become human to live here on Earth? With the millions of other galaxies, all of which could have millions of planets like Earth, with human beings like on earth, why would God limit himself by becoming human and living here? The whole concept seems to place more importance on us and our planet than maybe we really deserve.
The Christian faith might seem to engender some pride in ourselves, as though the God of the universe was somehow our God and that we can somehow lay claim to God because he came to live among us. So, I was wondering about this idea; do we almost believe the universe revolves around us by believing that God came to live on Earth with us? This is a valid question and a valid point, so what I’d like to address is this idea of God as God of the universe.
We don’t believe God has limits, and so while God limited himself in Jesus, living here on earth, being limited by his humanity, we don’t believe God limited himself beyond Jesus. There was no 30 year hiatus of God from the rest of the universe while God was living here on earth as Jesus.
So, while our belief does not limit our understanding of God, do we still lay a claim on God or lead us to believe that we are the only important people, the only important planet in all of the universe? Could Christian belief lead to a kind of pride, that we’re the only important ones and God is ours and no one else’s?
Think of the vastness of space, the fact that our planet, is a relatively small planet revolving around a relatively small star, in a relatively small galaxy.
Considering the whole of the universe, we could hardly be less significant. I did some research to try to find out just how small Earth is compared to the rest of the universe, and I searched around on the internet so God only knows how accurate any of these number are, but according to some of the numbers I found, the earth is somewhere around 20 quintillionths smaller than the known universe. What’s a quintillionth? Well, the numbers go: millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintillions. These numbers are utterly unfathomable, so I tried to find a way of conceptualizing the size of the earth compared to the universe, and I found a possible way to conceptualize these numbers. If the earth were one penny, twenty quintillion stacked up on top of each other would be several galaxies long.
I brought all of those numbers up so that we could imagine something of the scale of God’s humility in becoming human. God’s humility in becoming human is as unfathomable to me as trying to think of the tininess of earth in relation to the universe, and yet, as Paul wrote in Philippians:
…Christ Jesus…though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5c-8)
The scale of God’s humility and love in becoming human is unimaginable. When I consider God who created and is in charge of the whole of the universe coming to live among us on earth, I am struck not by our significance but by our insignificance. We are tiny people on an infinitesimally small speck in the Universe, and yet God cares for us deeply enough to become human and live with us.
This helps me see us as significant because of our insignificance. The God of the universe didn’t just make us and leave us alone. He made us and then stuck with us, even with the whole of the universe to tend to as well. One the scale of the universe, we are insignificant, and yet we’re significant to God. We are loved by God. Our universal insignificance doesn’t seem to matter to God. God loves us because he created us. The Christian belief that God became human to live among us does not raise our significance and pride so much as show something of the depth of God’s love for us, that God would humble himself so much in order to draw us closer to him.
Now on the other side of this, what Paul said in his letter to the Philippians was, “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5) Let the same humility and love that God has for us, be in us for each other.
Humility is one of those difficult things that in seeking humility, we can even become prideful of just how humbler we are. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say, “I’m one of the most humble people I know.” The heart’s in the right place, but humility is almost something for which we can’t really strive. The more we want to be humble, the more we might find ourselves taking pride in our humility because we’re that much better at being humble than everyone else.
That just doesn’t work, but what we see in Jesus is not him striving for humility, but what are we told? “He emptied himself…” In seeking to follow Christ, therefore, in seeking to be humble, we find the idea of emptying ourselves to be a fairly helpful concept.
If we begin with ourselves, trying to be humble, then we will find humility something difficult to grasp, but if we empty ourselves instead and look to others with love, look to others as beloved children of God, then we might have a chance to achieve humility.
Now humility is not the same thing as self loathing. We may find ourselves thinking, “oh, I hate myself, I’m terrible, I’m awful; it’s Holy Week and so I should think badly of myself; God doesn’t like me very much…” No, no, no. Humility is not a chance or an obligation to think badly of ourselves.
Humility is a joy. The joy of humility is the ability to see and accept God’s love for us. When we can see and accept how much God loves others, when we can empty ourselves of the need that we feel we have in this world to be great, to be successful, the need we have to achieve more and more, we can see that those are demands we place on ourselves.
God doesn’t demand greatness from us. We are next to nothing in the universe, and yet God showed his love for us through his humility. God didn’t say, “first become the greatest, most perfect, most highly exalted person you can be, and then I will find you worthy of my love.” No, God loves us simply because he made us, simply because we are his, and there is a great burden lifted in that acknowledgment.
Humility is truly allowing ourselves to accept God’s love for us, not because we are great or highly exalted above anyone else. None of us has any more intrinsic value than any other one of us. God loves and values each of us because we are his children, and in emptying ourselves of thoughts of greatness, thoughts of being above or more valuable than anyone else, we can find then find acceptance of God’s love for us. We can find ourselves to be beloved of God beyond our imagination. My prayer this Holy Week is that we will seek to have the same mind as Christ, that we will seek to empty ourselves of the need for greatness or the presumption of importance, and that we will then be able to accept God’s love and see ourselves and each other as beloved of God. Amen.
