4/1/07 - Palm Sunday - Philippians 2:5-11

HE MADE HIMSELF NOTHING
- Because of us
- To be exalted

Children are singing. Crowds of people are running to nearby palm trees. They break off the branches and rush back to the main road. Why? Because the King is coming. They wave their palm branches in the air and throw them on the street. Others without branches toss their own robes onto the road, in effect, rolling out the red carpet. Why? Because the King is coming. People from all walks of life gather around, grown men are shouting, and the crowd is proclaiming, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 19:38)! Why? Because the King is here. Jesus of Nazareth, the miracle worker, the one they call the Son of God - here he is riding on a donkey. And in fact, it’s not even his own animal. His disciples had borrowed it from someone else for the day. So here is the King, sitting on an adolescent donkey, riding over branches and robes, welcomed by the shouts of disciples and children as he enters Jerusalem.
Does this scene seem strange to you? But what is even stranger is the reason why the King coming into the capital city. The King is coming for one specific purpose. The King is coming to die. This is no boxing match in which the defending champion enters the arena amid an uproar of praise. No, this King is not coming to fight, but to suffer. Instead of displaying his power, he is going to give it up. Instead of a march of celebration, a march to his death. This is the reason the King is coming - to make himself nothing. This is what Palm Sunday is the start of.
But why would the King, why would any king for that matter - especially if this King was God - why would he make himself nothing? Because of us. Because of you. We forced him to go back to Jerusalem. Into the city of his enemies. Into the city where they had plotted his death the last time he was there. Our sins made him go back. Our sins gave him no choice. It was our fault that he had to go back to Jerusalem. It was our fault he had to be crucified. And, worst of all, it was our fault that he had to give up the glory he deserved as true God.
I wonder if that has ever weighed on our consciences as much as it should. We drove God out of his heaven. Our actions obligated him to leave the perfection of Paradise behind in order to live in a world of sin and ugliness and decay. Jesus gave up the glory of God for a time so that he could live and die like one of his creatures. This unimaginable act of the almighty God is incomprehensible, but it is clearly summarized for us in our text for today, Philippians chapter 2: “Christ Jesus who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be [put on display], but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on the cross!” God made himself nothing! He emptied himself of all glory and power and majesty to such an extent that he even allowed himself to bleed to death on a cross! It would have been more honorable to die in a ditch, to die alone. But not on a cross. Not as a public spectacle for his enemies’ twisted amusement. Not in a way reserved for the worst and sickest and most depraved of criminals.
But that is exactly where the King was heading. And as Jesus rode down the street on that donkey, he knew it. He knew what would happen if he stepped inside those city walls. And the amazing thing is: he kept going! Because Jesus the King was on his way to make himself nothing not only because of us, but for us. He wanted to! He wanted to make himself nothing! Otherwise he wouldn’t have been on that road going into Jerusalem. He would have still been up in heaven if he didn’t want to do it. He would have simply avoided all the pain and suffering if he didn’t love us and care for us and desperately want to save us. Jesus may have been obligated to ride into Jerusalem because of our sins, but he was obligated even more so because of his love.
“I am the good shepherd,” Jesus says to us. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 9:11). He was not about to let your sins condemn you. So on Palm Sunday he rode into the hands of those that condemned him. He was not about to let your sins keep you away from the glory of heaven. And so he set aside his own glory and became obedient to death on the cross. He wasn’t about to let us suffer eternally for the sins that so completely fill our hearts and minds. And so he emptied himself in order to take our place. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). There was no other way. There was no other act of love that could have saved us. And there was no other person that could have done it. Only Jesus Christ, our brother. Only Jesus Christ, our God. And so willingly he sat on that donkey. Willingly he entered into that city of Jerusalem. Willingly he made himself nothing so that he could give us everything.
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that 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.” That’s the second half of our text in Philippians chapter 2. That’s also the second half of the story. As a result of the fact that Jesus made himself nothing, God the Father exalted him to the highest place. Because his Father approved of what his Son had done. He accepted the sacrifice. And so he rewarded his Son in the only appropriate way possible: he officially made his Son the King.
What a full circle of events! Within a week Jesus went from praises and accolades on the Palm Sunday donkey, to betrayal and arrest in the Maundy Thursday Garden, to torture and death on the Good Friday cross, to victory and life in and out of the Easter Sunday tomb. What a week! What a week for Jesus the God-man! What a week for humankind! He went from life on earth to the depths of hell to the glories of heaven! And so today, Palm Sunday, is just the start! Today is just the beginning of Jesus’ rollercoaster ride to glory. A glory he still now holds and a glory no one will be able to deny on Judgment Day.
“Every knee shall bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Every living thing, from the angels in heaven, to the people on earth, to those who are suffering in hell will have to bow down and worship Jesus as Lord. There will be no more refusal. There will be no more rejection. All things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth will be forced to bow down and confess that Jesus really is true God - whether or not they will benefit from it. Because by that time, it will be too late. The King will have come again and he will have come to judge. To unbelievers it will be a sad realization. For Christians, it will be the event we’ve always been waiting for.
This event that we’re waiting for - it will be very similar to what happened on Palm Sunday but taken to a glorious extreme. The King will come. But instead of being accompanied by his disciples, he’ll be flanked by his army of holy angels. Instead of sitting on a donkey, he’ll be riding on the clouds. Instead of the shouts of mortal men there will be heard the trumpet blast of God himself around the world. Instead of palm branches and robes thrown onto the road, “the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken” (Matthew 24:29). Instead of a small gathering of believers, the elect from the four corners of the earth will be gathered. Instead of Jesus looking towards the impending week of pain, we will be looking at an eternity of joy. Instead of humility, glory. Instead of death, life.
Doesn’t that future Palm Sunday sound great? And we’ll all be there! No matter how long we’ve been separated by death or distance, we will all be gathered together with every believer to sing the exact same thing they sang to the Lord on the first Palm Sunday, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” Yes, blessed is the King who comes to make himself nothing. Blessed is the king who comes to die. Blessed is the king who comes to rise. Blessed is the king who comes for us.
Amen.

“Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” - 1 Timothy 1:17