The Mind of Christ

In Nomine Iesu
Philippians 2:1-18
September 25, 2011
Pentecost 15—Proper 21A


Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

Medical technology has advanced to such a degree that there’s virtually no part of your body that can’t be replaced. To receive a new knee or a new shoulder is nothing these days. Vital organs such as lungs, kidneys and even the heart are successfully transplanted into needy recipients almost every day. Why, within the past year or so, surgeons have even succeeded at the first face transplant.

But one thing I don’t think we’ll ever see is a brain transplant. Your mind is uniquely yours. You can swap out any number of other body parts, but you and your mind are inseparable. When the brain does malfunction, all we can do is treat the malady and medicate the mind. What’s the biggest problem with your brain? Mental illness, seizure disorders and Alzheimer’s are some big brain problems. Others of us simply aren’t very smart in some particular subjects.

But where each of our minds fails us most is nothing medical. Our biggest brain problem is not that we’re deficient in math or reading comprehension or even IQ. Our minds can sometimes supply the right answers; but when it comes to living right and doing right the brain you were born with is worthless. When it comes to loving God and loving your neighbor, your mind is vast wasteland. Your brain only cares about you. You are all that matters to your mind. And just let me say, a mind is a terrible thing to waste . . . on you only.

What you need is another mind. What you need is the mind of Christ. That’s the upshot of Philippians chapter two. “Your attitude,” Paul writes, “should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” But it’s the old King James Version that nails it: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” In other words, think like Jesus. Have the mind of the Messiah. It sounds like good advice. “Be more like Jesus. Make your mind more like His.” Who can argue with that?

But then Paul beautifully unpacks just what he means by the “mind” of Christ; and it turns out that our minds and the mind of Christ have absolutely nothing in common. His gray matter and our gray matter are two entirely different substances. The mind of Christ led Him always to be concerned about others—serving them and helping them. And in the process, though He was God, He made Himself nothing. Literally, He “emptied” Himself—poured Himself out entirely in service to others. Whether it was washing the dirty, stinky feet of His disciples, or having mercy on ten men with leprosy, or confronting demons or feeding the five thousand or forgiving the sins of broken-hearted, teary-eyed sinners—never once did the Savior say, “I’m tired. Go away. Come back tomorrow. I’m busy. I need time for me.” He made Himself nothing. He became the servant of servants. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. Behold, the mind of Christ.

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Beloved in the Lord, if you think this text is simply saying, “Be more like Jesus,” you’re missing something. If you think this text means asking “What would Jesus do?” and then doing it for the rest of your life, prepare to be disappointed. You’d have better luck if you simply volunteered for a brain transplant. As sinners, we don’t have what it takes to do what Jesus would do. If we have to figure it out and do it ourselves, it ain’t gonna get done.

God is giving you so much more today than a command to try harder and be more like His Son. What God gives you today is a reality—a miracle, really. It’s the brain transplant you’ve always dreamed of! It is the mind of Christ—in you. It is the attitude of Christ Jesus shaping your attitudes. It is the servanthood of the Savior serving others through you—through your hands and your feet and your mind. Let this mind (the mind of Christ) be in you.

How can it be that sinners like us who seem to do everything out of selfish ambition and vain conceit can suddenly see the crying needs of those around us . . . and do something about it? How can it be that sinners like us who naturally view ourselves as the smartest people with the greatest needs can suddenly see things in a radically different way? How can it be that sinners like us who can’t be even mildly inconvenienced without complaining and arguing can suddenly suffer great loss with quiet humility? How? It is the mind of Christ—in you—working a radical transformation. It’s like a personality transplant. Your mind is decreasing. The mind of Christ is increasing.

The mind of Christ cannot be understood apart from the cross. But at the cross the mind of Christ is made perfectly clear for all. There we see Jesus as your sin-bearing servant. All the sinful schemes ever hatched and carried out by your warped brain were laid upon Jesus. All the devious, deviant decisions conceived in your fertile brain were attributed to Him. He was made to be our sin. And all that He suffered—the betrayal, the beating, and the blood—all this was God’s deliberate plan to save you—to redeem you and restore in you the mind of Christ. Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to death because that was the only way—the only way that God could make rebels into His children, and to resurrect brain-dead sinners with the merciful mind of Christ.

Your life is now hidden with Christ (Col. 3:3). Or, to turn that around, the life of Christ is now hidden in you. His mind, His humility, His servanthood—it’s all mysteriously at work in you. For all of you who were baptized into Christ are now clothed with Christ. As baptized children of God, every day we repent of our sins. The Old Adam in us is drowned and dies, and a new man emerges to live before God in righteousness and purity. And that new man inside of you—well, he looks surprisingly like Jesus. Today’s text ultimately isn’t about us doing what Jesus would do. No, the Christian life is really about Christ’s doing and Christ’s working in you and through you, guiding, directing and providing you with strength and humility to love God and serve your neighbor. It’s like Paul told the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

As you draw on the nourishment of His living Word, as you eat and drink His life-giving body and blood, the life of Jesus Himself pulses within you. The attitude of Christ becomes your attitude. The very mind of Christ dwells in you. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

You need to remember these words of God especially on those days when you’re tired—tired of giving and giving and giving, and getting absolutely nothing in return—when all your friends and family are in crisis and there’s no one to hear your complaint—when it seems that everyone is taking advantage of you—maybe even the members of your own family. These words are aimed at you when you’re so weary of serving others and when you’ve emptied yourself of every last ounce of compassion and good will—when it seems like the perfect time to get assertive and aggressive and tell everybody else where to get off. What should you do?

You simply let the Jesus in you do His thing. Let go—let God—let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. We don’t like that answer by nature. It hardly seems fair for me to give and give while others just take and take. “What’s in it for me?” we ask. But that’s not the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ asks, “Who needs me? Who has God placed in my life who needs my service and my support and my love?” You won’t have to look far or wait too long for an answer to that question.

What is it about your life that you find most draining? Who empties you of all the care and compassion you can muster? What cross do you find most difficult to bear? A wealthy woman on safari in Africa once stopped at a primitive hospital for lepers. The heat was intense. The stench was stifling. The flies were buzzing everywhere. The wealthy woman on safari noticed a nurse who was bending down in the dirt, tending to the pus-filled sores and lesions of a dying man. The woman remarked, “You know, I wouldn’t do that for all the money in the world.” To which the nurse gently replied, “Neither would I.” Because, you see, she had the mind of Christ—who came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. And with the mind of Christ comes the heart of Christ, the hands of Christ, the eyes of Christ, the compassion of Christ.

Beloved in the Lord, this mind is also in you. In you Jesus Himself is hard at work, until that day when at His name every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Some Straight Talk about Death and Life

In Nomine Iesu
Philippians 1:19-26
September 18, 2011
Pentecost 14-Proper 20A

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. We believe that the Scriptures are always truthful, always accurate, always powerful. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some things in the Bible that are hard to swallow. We sometimes have to wrestle with what the Word says, because what the Word says is so contrary to what our reason and our senses tell us.

The four-word epitaph on the cover of today’s bulletin is one of the most hard-to-swallow phrases in all the Scriptures: “To die is gain.” It makes for a great epitaph. And those four words are the Word of the Lord. But . . . do we believe them—we who have watched loved ones die—we who have had loved ones suddenly snatched away from life to death? Do we believe that “to die . . . is gain?”

Now, before we go any further, let’s be clear on one thing. The Bible doesn’t say, “Death is good.” Nor does the Bible say that death is a natural part of the circle of life. That is not the Word of the Lord. God’s Word tells us that death is the wages of our sin. Death is the final “enemy” that God sent His Son to destroy. When God created the heavens and the earth and after six days declared that everything was “very good,” death was not part of that picture. So let’s not pretend (and don’t you hear me saying) that death is a good thing. But do—do hear the Word of the Lord: “To die is gain.”

It takes a lot of effort just to talk about death. It’s such an unpleasant subject that people generally try to avoid it. Our culture denies death. It’s difficult even for us simply to say that so-and-so died. We prefer the euphemisms (and there are so many to choose from): “He passed away, he passed on, expired, kicked the bucket, bought the farm, bit the dust, met his Maker.” And the list goes on and on. Euphemisms about death aren’t a bad thing. They afford a gentler way to broach a difficult subject.

In fact, St. Paul employed a euphemism to describe death in today’s reading from Philippians. When Paul wrote these words to the church at Philippi, things were not going well for him. He wasn’t preaching to packed pews. Nor was he out planting new congregations and winning new converts. He was in prison. His future was uncertain and grim. But to hear Paul describe his situation, you’d think that he had nothing but good options and pleasant possibilities on the horizon: “I eagerly expect,” he wrote, “that Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”

Did you catch the euphemism? Paul didn’t say, “I desire to die.” What he said was, “I desire to depart and be with Christ.” Now, there’s a euphemism that tells it like it is. There’s good news in that description of death. Straight talk about death never sounded so good. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. Beloved in the Lord, you could read a hundred books on death and dying—you could digest a dozen best-sellers by people claiming to have been to heaven and back again. But here in the pages of your New Testament is the heart of what you need to know about death and dying.

What happens when you die? Here’s what happens when you die: You will be immediately with Christ. You will stand in the Savior’s presence. You will not be alone. You will not be afraid. You will not be asleep. “Sleep” is another euphemism for death that you sometimes find in the Scriptures. And based on that, some Christians have mistakenly concluded that at death the soul just goes to sleep—a kind of holy hibernation—until the day of resurrection. But it ain’t so; for the Bible tells us otherwise. When we depart this life—when we die—we are immediately with Christ. And with Christ, you will lack nothing. You will have everything—far more than you deserve and more than you can even desire. (Even the body you temporarily leave behind is destined to be raised, resurrected and glorified.) And this is why. This is why Paul could write those four little words that sound so foreign—so alien—to our usual way of thinking: “To die is gain.”

Do you believe it? And if you believe it today, will you also believe it in your last days, your last hours and minutes? Many of us, I think it’s safe to say, fear dying. And I think it’s more than just the fear of the unknown. I think we fear death because death is a reminder of our sin. “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sins will die.” And when it comes to sin, we each have a record that runs long and deep: the good things we have failed to do and the bad things we have so eagerly engaged in. Over the years, it adds up. And the dying person can no longer hide from that sobering reality of sin.

But you don’t have to hide! Jesus came to save you from that sobering reality of sin. He came into the world to save sinners. For this very reason, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. Jesus took your sins all the way to His tomb. He was your stand-in beneath the wrath of God—your sacred substitute. He confronted death head-on, and by His resurrection Jesus defeated that terrifying enemy. Death couldn’t hold on to Jesus and it won’t hold onto you either. For you, death is just a doorway. Depart through that doorway and you will be with Christ.

And this is why we believe those four little words: “to die is gain.” So often when a loved ones dies, the comfort we speak centers on all the bad things that the deceased no longer has to deal with. And it is comforting to realize that there’s no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears, no more sinning. But don’t stop there. Dying isn’t just leaving the bad stuff behind. It is gain. It is receiving—receiving the fullness of all that our God has to give.

And while I’d love to go into great detail about all of that, I can’t. For the Bible also tells us this about the life of the world to come: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). Don’t base your hopes for the afterlife on human authors who claim to have been there and back again. Don’t even set your sights on streets of gold or pearly gates. Don’t imagine halos and harps on fluffy white clouds. Think Jesus. You will be with Him. You will see Him as He is—true God and true man. He loves you and He’s got the scars to prove it. In Him is life and forgiveness and peace that passes understanding. To die is gain.

Do you believe that? If you do, then I’m sure that you will want the people who come to your funeral to know that too—that in Christ, “to die is gain.” Have you given any thought to your funeral? I don’t mean, have you put down a deposit at the funeral home? I mean, have you considered what Scripture, what hymns, what music you want to bear witness to the hope that you have in Christ? I hope you’ll have your funeral here, and not in the fake, sterile serenity of the funeral home. I hope that you’ll choose readings and hymns and music that trumpet your faith in Christ—texts that boldly proclaim your belief in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come—instead of readings and music better suited for soft weeping into a lace hanky of hopelessness. Not sure? Then let me make some suggestions for you to pick from. Then write it down and give a copy to me. We’ll give you a send-off fit for a saint—for one redeemed by Christ the crucified.

This is also why we Christians attend funerals. When a brother or sister in Christ dies, it’s easy to say, “I didn’t know him or her very well. I don’t think I’ll go to the funeral.” Beloved in the Lord, not true! You are more deeply united to the people gathered here in this fellowship than to any other people on earth. If you can kneel next to someone at the altar and share together in the gifts of Christ, then you share a holy bond that cannot be broken. And your voice is needed at the funeral to help proclaim and sing to any and all in attendance that, because Jesus Christ has destroyed death, “to die is gain.”

But as for you, you’re not dead yet, are you? You’re still alive and kicking—still quick and not dead. And I can’t let you go without giving good news for this day and this hour. To die is gain, it’s true. You can look forward to that. But it’s also true that to live is Christ. Your daily labor is not in vain. The work of your vocations, your labor in the Lord’s vineyard here, your successes and your failures—in all the humdrum, everyday stuff you do, you are not alone. Here and now, Christ is exalted in you—in your body, in your works, in your words and deeds. To live is Christ. Here and now—is Christ. You have the power of His promises preached and proclaimed. You have His forgiveness. You have His body and blood. Your body is a temple of His Holy Spirit.

You, like Paul, have nothing but good options. Whether you are at the top of your game or locked up in prison, (or even dying) you can’t go wrong. For . . . to live is Christ and to die is gain. Amen.