{"id":1361,"date":"2022-02-04T13:00:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T18:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1361"},"modified":"2022-02-04T13:00:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T18:00:18","slug":"glory-to-god-in-the-lowest-and-highest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/04\/glory-to-god-in-the-lowest-and-highest\/","title":{"rendered":"Glory to God in the Lowest…and Highest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It\u2019s possible that more doctoral theses, exegetical studies, and heartfelt sermons have been centered on Philippians 2:5-11 than any other text in Scripture.

That\u2019s because the apostle Paul\u2019s inspiring summary of the life of Jesus alludes, in the span of just seven verses, to the four most important days in human history:  Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and the Ascension.  No other Bible text can make such a claim.   

Paul begins with the Incarnation \u2013 God\u2019s mind-bending decision to rescue humanity by actually becoming a member of the human race. 

He writes concerning Jesus in verses six and seven, \u201cWho, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.  Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.\u201d

Christmas is our annual opportunity to explore the myriad deep meanings of that decision.  Sometimes we overlook an important one:  The Incarnation (“taking on flesh”) is God\u2019s enthusiastic thumbs-up regarding human bodies.  Many of us are filled with angst concerning what we look like (or what we don\u2019t look like).  But Christmas is the proof that, in God\u2019s mind, human bodies are a gift and not a curse. 

Glory<\/em>to God in the lowest<\/em>:  Jesus was willing to become just like us.

But let\u2019s face it: His birth wouldn\u2019t have merited as much as a second thought except for what we learn in verse eight: \u201cAnd being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death \u2013 even death on a cross.\u201d 

Jesus came into the world as a baby, but not in order to remain a baby.  The culmination of his life and ministry was to surrender his life in order to eradicate our sins.

More than a hundred years ago, King Menelich of Ethiopia learned that America had invented a remarkable new instrument for capital punishment.  It was called the electric chair.  Wanting very much to keep pace with the times, Menelich ordered two of them.  There was just one problem.  Ethiopia had no electrical power grid.  Ever the practical monarch, Menelich decided to utilize one of the chairs as his throne. 

The king literally ruled from an instrument of death.

So it is with Jesus.  All authority on heaven and earth belongs to the King of the Cosmos because he gave his life for us. 

That brings us to verse nine: \u201cTherefore God exalted him to the highest place\u201d \u2013 this One who had descended to the lowest place is now elevated to the place of greatest honor by means of his resurrection and ascension \u2013 \u201cand gave him the name that is above every name.\u201d  Four great past events \u2013 Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and the Ascension \u2013 are spotlighted back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

So what about verses ten and eleven? 

Those speak of a future<\/em> event \u2013 one that will represent either the greatest moment or the worst moment in your <\/em>spiritual history.  Paul says, \u201cThat 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.\u201d

Every <\/em>knee will bow before Jesus.  Every <\/em>human voice will shout, \u201cYou are the king!\u201d  For some of us, that will be our most eagerly anticipated get-to.  <\/em>For others, it will be our most painfully difficult have-to<\/em>. 

This remarkable text first alludes to Christmas.  We look at a child born to an unwed Jewish peasant girl and ask, \u201cIsn\u2019t he adorable?\u201d  But the story of Jesus was always meant to take us to the place where we might say, \u201cI choose to adore him.\u201d

British theologian C.S. Lewis suggested that the more we ponder what Jesus has done, the more likely we are to enroll as one of his lifelong learners.  Concerning the \u201cGreat Descent\u201d of Philippians 2 he wrote:

Or one may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks the surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing that he went down to recover. He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light: Down below, where it lay colorless, in the dark, He lost His color too.<\/em>

Glory to God in the<\/em>lowest<\/em>:  God\u2019s own Son entered \u201cthe death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay.\u201d  That\u2019s where we live. 

Why did he do it?  His intention was to recover a certain \u201cdripping, precious thing.\u201d  That\u2019s you<\/em>.  And me<\/em>. 

Which is why the soaring finale of our text is glory to God in the<\/em>highest<\/em>. 

That’s the story of Jesus.

The story of God doing whatever it takes to bring us to himself. 
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It\u2019s possible that more doctoral theses, exegetical studies, and heartfelt sermons have been centered on Philippians 2:5-11 than any other text in Scripture. That\u2019s because the apostle Paul\u2019s inspiring summary of the life of Jesus alludes, in the span of just seven verses, to the four most important days in human history:  Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and the Ascension.  No… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-1361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-incarnation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions\/1363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}