Down to get up--Philippians 2

From his prison cell, Paul writes to the Philippians, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves."

Apparently, Paul had received word about what was happening in the church at Philippi. We don't know exactly what the conflict there was about, but there was division and contention of some kind. Paul calls for unity and humility. As an illustration of the humility he encourages, Paul points to Christ "who, 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 the cross."

We've heard this text many times and have read the early creeds, so this christological hymn doesn't strike us as odd perhaps, but to the Greco-Roman mind, this notion of a heavenly being taking on human form to be humiliated and shamed in the worst possible way--death on the cross--was ludicrous. Developing and maintaining one's honor and good name in the community was very important. We speak of societal pressure to climb the corporate ladder in today's world. Well for the ancients, it was social necessity.

But Jesus didn't climb; he descended. It was through this shameful defeat that God lifts Jesus up and gives him a name higher than any other, "that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord."

How might God be calling you now to descend, even when every fiber of your being longs to ascend, to be strong and to dominate? Where do you need to listen rather than speak? To whom do you need to say, I was wrong?

Humility scares us because it always is accompanied by vulnerability. Yet, that is the Jesus way.