A Palm Sunday Meditation
“Imitatio Christi”
The “imitation of Christ”.
Paul tells us in today’s Epistle; “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”.
We stand at the foot of the cross in silence because we recognize that the mind of Christ is in us.
We suffer as he did.
Our public suffering with Jesus is with the people of the Ukraine and the Pandemic that has touched us all.
The mind of Christ is with us in the sufferings we endure personally.
We loose loved ones.
Family, friends and we ourselves suffer all kinds of loss and disease.
We share in the suffering of Jesus.
Interestingly, his equality with God was not something Jesus exploited.
Rather he emptied himself.
He was in human form.
And then he became obedient even to the point of death.
This is the challenge of the “Imitation of Christ”; the “Imitatio Christi.”
Frankly, I find that I am rather full of myself.
But Jesus empties himself and looks at me to do the same.
It is just a fact of the Cross.
There is no other way around the Cross but through it,
In empty silence.
In the same way Jesus did.
Curiously as much as we find the Cross to be the end, for Jesus it is only the beginning.
In fact the logical next step for the death of Jesus is his exaltation.
For as the Epistle says; “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
That Name “Jesus” is shorthand for the Love of God made Flesh and Blood in him.
He is the one who heals and brings the dead to life.
He feeds the multitudes.
He seeks the lost sheep and the outcast.
He gathers us together as a hen gathers in her brood.
And we are called to “Imitate Christ” and be like him.
Like the early church in the days of persecution, the Celts in the time of foreign invasion, or the Confessing Church in Germany during the darkest days of Nazism we are called to live our lives like Jesus did.
We began with the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount.
We stand empty and silent at the foot of the cross.
We live our lives for the sake of those who need our courage and our love.
This is our way to proclaim that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”
This is why we sing “Hosanna! Lord, Hosanna.
Hosanna in the Highest!”
When we thought that the Cross was the end, we discovered it was only the beginning.
These Palms are a sign of that Victory!
Ride on King Jesus.
Ride on to die.
Let every tongue in Heaven and Earth confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God in the Highest!
In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.
Epistle: Philippians 2:5-11
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 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 a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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