Jesus Emptied Himself For Us!

I am wondering this morning if you have ever experienced something in your life that made you feel helpless.

Have you ever had a problem that you that you couldn’t solve?

We probably don’t like that feeling.

We want it to go away.

This morning I want to suggest that it is at these times when God is at work.

That in that helplessness God is up to something.

We know this because as Christians that God that we know died on a cross.

That the God that was revealed to us in Jesus Christ was not an all powerful God, but one who was helpless to stop the violence and death that he faced.

We read today in Philippians, “Though he was in the form of God…but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form…and became obedient to the point of death- even death on a cross.”

The God that we know in Jesus Christ is not the God who sits up high.

It is not the God who grants wishes.

It is not the God who makes everything wonderful.

It is a God who knows all too well human helplessness, human venerability.

Of all the insights that were brought forth from the Reformation this one was of key importance.

God works are hidden from us, except, in the work of suffering.

The place where we know God’s work is in our suffering.

It is in our places when we feel defeated, we feel lost, and we feel helpless.

In those places we will find God at work.

Luther called people who only saw God in winning and triumph theologians of glory.

But true theologians he argued are found in those who see God truly at work in our suffering.

Before the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 I would tell people that Yankee fans were theologians of glory.

Red Sox fans knew the theology of the cross.

We knew true agonizing suffering.

We knew what it meant to lose every time.

Yankee fans expected to win every year, we expected to lose.

As we have been exploring these past couple of weeks the themes of the Reformation still are relevant for our times, maybe none more than this one.

We live in a world of glory.

We love glory.

We love the big stories of triumph.

We love the underdog making it big.

We love winning.

We want to be with the winner.

And we want our lives to be great.

We want them to be happy and awesome.

But they are often far from the fairy tales we have been told.

Our lives are often more mundane then we wish they were.

They don’t seem as heroic.

Jesus tells us this morning that the place where God is at work is in prostitutes and tax collectors.

Not in the chief priest and elders!

Not in the people who have it all together?

Not in the people who are telling everyone the mighty acts of God?

But in the people who are beaten down by life, the losers, and the sufferers.

This is hard to fathom.

The question that our faith in God confronts us with is who are we?

Do we have it all together?

Is there nothing in our lives that is bad?

And the second is where is God?

Is God only found in the wonderful moments?

Is God only found in the glorious moments?

A couple of years ago I went up on my day off with my kids to spend some time with my mother.

We had a really wonderful day.

We went sledding at Calumet.

We went out for lunch.

My mom called it, “This is a God is good day.”

It was indeed.

But what about the other days in our lives that are not so wonderful?

What about the day I got the call from my mother that my Dad died?

What about the day I found out that my mom had cancer?

What about the day my friend Sarah died?

What about the night at College when all I wanted to do was quite?

What about the night our family was fighting and my Dad had to leave the house?

What about all those other times when things were not all so wonderful.

What about those times I felt helpless?

What Luther challenges us on is that God is just as much at work in those moments as the “God is good day”.

I was talking to some people in our congregation this week about prayer.

It is interesting to me how some subjects come up in a week more than once for some reason.

But I had several conversations about prayer.

People were telling me that prayer was an essential part of their faith lives.

That it was prayer that got them through some pretty hard times.

And that God always answers prayer.

Isn’t that true?

There are two caveats to this (that the people agreed with me on).

One, not always in the way we think God will answer that prayer.

Two, we only see this in hindsight.

This means that God works in mysterious ways.

And while we are going through struggles we don’t know the outcome.

We don’t know the way that God will work in our lives.

That is the hidden part of God.

To suggest that we do know is dangerous and disingenuous.

It is to be a theologian of Glory.

To say things like, "God will never give you more than you can handle."

“To blessed to be stressed” “Everything happens for a reason.”

Or something else that seems comforting by really ignores or overlooks our pain is not helpful.

On the other hand, to see God in our pain, helplessness, and hurt is to see that Jesus Christ emptied himself for us, took our human form, and can sympathize with our human weakness, is the good news!

The God we know in Jesus Christ has dwells with us.

God sits with us in our helplessness.

Turn to God with your troubles with what aches your heart.

Because we know that God will be there.

Pray with all your might to God to be with you in those times.

Some day you can look back and see God at work in that time.

Not that God caused your suffering.

But that God helped you through, God created something new in you through that moment.

Maybe even that you are stronger in faith for having gone through it with God.

Not that it all got taken care of, that everything is all tied up in a nice bow.

Only that you survived, and maybe learned some lessons along the way about yourself and God.

God does not fix every problem we have.

To believe that is to be a theologian of glory.

But God is in every problem we have.

And we can call on God to be with us through everything we face through our helplessness, pain, heartache, loss, and sin.

To believe that is to be theologian of the cross.

It is to have faith in the God we know through Jesus Christ that even though he was in the form of God emptied himself for us.

Amen