{"id":9279,"date":"2023-09-24T15:37:38","date_gmt":"2023-09-24T22:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9279"},"modified":"2023-09-24T15:44:03","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T22:44:03","slug":"lift-high-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9279","title":{"rendered":"
Lift High the Cross<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philippians 2:5-11<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philippians 2:5-11<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/sup><\/strong>Have this mind among yourselves,
which is yours in Christ Jesus,
6<\/sup><\/strong>who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God
a thing to be grasped,
7<\/sup><\/strong>but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
8<\/sup><\/strong>And being found in human form
he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross.
9<\/sup><\/strong>Therefore God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
10<\/sup><\/strong>that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11<\/sup><\/strong>and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Lutheran couple was reading the Bible through in one year. They had bought what\u2019s called a chronological Bible, which is printed in such a way that you can read it in 365 days. It doesn\u2019t work well because we don\u2019t know the time and date for some of the books in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couple expressed some frustration with the readings. They asked: \u201cWhy does it keep repeating itself? It says the same thing over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a basic kind of poetry in the Bible, mostly in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament as well. We see it in the Psalms but also in most of the prophets. It is called parallelism. It is the same thing said again, slightly differently; this is called \u201csynonymous.\u201d Or when what is said is the opposite, it is called \u201cantithetic,\u201d or where there is progress in what is said, it is called \u201csynthetic.\u201d There are really about six ways that parallelism works. It is not built like our poetry, which is based on rhyme and rhythm. It is somewhat similar to the poetry of an old English poem called Beowulf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an old joke about poetry and prose in Moliere\u2019s play, The Middle Class Gentleman. <\/em>Moliere wrote this play in 1670. In one scene the Philosopher says to the Middle Class Gentleman: \u201cIf it\u2019s not prose, it\u2019s poetry, and if it\u2019s not poetry, its prose.\u201d The Middle Class Gentleman turns to the Philosopher and says: \u201cFor forty years I\u2019ve been speaking prose, and I didn\u2019t even know it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We find fragments of early hymns throughout the New Testament. One is in Ephesians 5:14, where it says: \u201cAwake, O sleeper, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.\u201d This is probably something that was sung or used as a refrain at a baptismal service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our text for today, Philippians 2:6-11, is understood by the majority of scholars as a poetic form used in early hymnody. This only truly comes through when you translate it back into that Hebrew dialect called Aramaic. We have printed it out for you today in stanzas to show you how this poetic form worked. (The translation for verse 6 should have \u201ca thing to be grasped\u201d as the third line as we have printed it for you). We have three triplets, three parallel statements, and then three couplets, three double statements. The first part being Jesus Christ as he comes to descend to us, and then the second half, his glorification, his ascent into power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Philippians 2:6 states: \u201cHe did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.\u201d Someone has said that means \u201cunderstood.\u201d In English we can say: \u201cI didn\u2019t grasp that,\u201d meaning \u201cI didn\u2019t understand that.\u201d But not in the original language here. Rather it means \u201csomething that I hang on to.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as we look at Philippians 2:8, we see it has four lines! What has become evident to the majority of scholars (and is found in the most recent official Greek text of the New Testament, which is printed out in this poetic form), is that Paul added: \u201ceven death on the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did Paul do that? He broke the poetic form! He broke the parallelism! These verses were a hymn that early Christians sang. The Christians were known as those who sang, but they had left off the cross, and Paul is correcting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same kind of correction can be seen in Colossians 1:15-20. This text is also set up as a hymn. But right at the end in verse 20 there is something that breaks the parallelism: \u201cMaking peace by the blood of the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know something about this kind of thinking that overlooked the cross as we look at Corinth. What the people said is: \u201cWe\u2019re now saved. We\u2019re part of the resurrection. Therefore this life and all of its temptations are no longer relevant. We\u2019re going to show this by living wildly and sinning all over the place. We\u2019re free and above all this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had become confused, misled. For them the cross had become incidental. The big thing was the resurrection. We see the same problem in the book, The DaVinci Code.<\/em> It is a twisted revision of history. What the author Daniel Brown did is really nothing new. The same kind of twisted revising was done in the Second and Third Centuries. And Daniel Brown isn\u2019t the only one in modern times who has done this; there are many others. In 1929 D.H Lawrence wrote a book called A Man Who Died, <\/em>but he only appeared to die; he didn\u2019t really die. Somebody took his place, and he ran off with the pagan goddess Isis. This twisted revising of history has happened throughout church history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s behind it all, apart from the obvious nonsense of it all, is the question: Can God change? Does God change? Because change implies that there is that which was not as good and now is changed, or was good and now has changed for the worse. Change means imperfection, and therefore God doesn\u2019t change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over against the idea that God cannot change is the very direct witness of the New Testament that God did change. On the cross it was God against God, and we won. God actually came and died for us. That\u2019s enormous. Some will say only the human part died, not the God part. And you remember that the Council of Chalcedon established that Christ is unmixed and undivided, and we cannot separate the human and the divine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, Luther and his close associate Brenz emphasized that God changed; God conquered death and that\u2019s basic. It\u2019s not trivial, it\u2019s not something by the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does that mean for you and me here and now? We may be tempted to say basically the cross is not what it\u2019s really about; it\u2019s really about the resurrection. And there are others who have said that \u201cthe cross business\u201d is a quirk that Christians have, but you don\u2019t find it seriously in other religions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015 the Chinese government decreed strict rules about how churches could display crosses. They had to be on the fa\u00e7ades of buildings, not above them. They had to be of a color that blended into the building, not one that stood out. They had to be small, no more than one tenth of the height of the building\u2019s fa\u00e7ade. But even that restricted freedom did not last. Now the Chinese government has abolished all crosses, and Chinese Christians are being heavily persecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a Lutheran Church in California with a big decoration on the outside of the church in the middle of which is a cross. But the cross is removable. On Jewish high holy days, they hang the Star of David. When there\u2019s a Buddhist festival, they hang a lotus blossom. On Islamic holy days they hang a crescent, etc. etc. Those Lutherans think the decoration on their church shows everyone how open and tolerant they are. After all, aren\u2019t all religions about eternal life? In fact, we should be absolutely horrified at this kind of blasphemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You must not misunderstand. In no way are we denying the resurrection. There are those who could be called Christmas\/Easter Christians. They show up on these big holidays. But we are Good Friday Christians. The center of what it is all about is the cross. It\u2019s true that the cross without the resurrection is a tragedy, but the resurrection without the cross is just a fantasy. And fantasy thinking is found in all kinds of religions. For them everything is about the resurrection as a super-miracle. No, that\u2019s not what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Rather, the resurrection, like the cross, is \u201cthe power of God and the wisdom of God\u201d (1 Cor. 1:24), that which is without parallel, the novum<\/em> (the totally new), beyond sin, death, and the devil, \u201cbeyond all that we ask or think\u201d (Eph 3:20). Forde: \u201cFor in a theology of the cross, the cross and resurrection is <\/em>the way,\u201d Where God Meets Man<\/em>, 38. See The Cross and the Crown<\/em>, 19.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What matters are the two ways that make all the difference. We take the cross, to use a pun, deadly seriously. First of all, because it is how God takes our history as absolutely serious, as well as creation. Creation is not a myth of some fertility cult as most religions have it. Rather, the Lord himself comes into our history, and it is really and seriously that which he is involved in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second place, he is establishing justice. This is not where God says: \u201cHa, ha, nothing matters.\u201d No, he establishes justice through the cross, and he deals with sin, and he does it justly and therefore he has conquered sin, death, and the devil, which are all the same thing. This is why we note very carefully John 19:30: \u201cIt is finished.\u201d It is finished there on the cross. It is guaranteed by the fact that there is the resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have great hymns like \u201cLift High the Cross\u201d which keep us focused \u201ctil all the world adore his sacred name.\u201d Or as Paul writes in 1 Cor 15:57: \u201cThanks be to God who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d That\u2019s the victory over sin, death, and the devil mentioned in the previous verse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it says in Hebrews 2:14: \u201c. . . he partook of the same nature that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul writes at the conclusion of Galatians 6: \u201cFar be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.\u201d Amen

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philippians 2:5-11<\/p>\n

A Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.<\/p>\n

A Lutheran couple was reading the Bible through in one year. They had bought what\u2019s called a chronological Bible, which is printed in such a way that you can read it in 365 days. It doesn\u2019t work well because we don\u2019t know the time and date for some of the books in the Old Testament.<\/p>\n

The couple expressed some frustration with the readings. They asked: \u201cWhy does it keep repeating itself? It says the same thing over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a basic kind of poetry in the Bible, mostly in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament as well. We see it in the Psalms but also in most of the prophets. It is called parallelism. It is the same thing said again, slightly differently; this is called \u201csynonymous.\u201d Or when what is said is the opposite, it is called \u201cantithetic,\u201d or where there is progress in what is said, it is called \u201csynthetic.\u201d There are really about six ways that parallelism works. It is not built like our poetry, which is based on rhyme and rhythm. It is somewhat similar to the poetry of an old English poem called Beowulf.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9279"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9289,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279\/revisions\/9289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}