Are We Walking Alongside?

The Journey Begins with the End in Sight - Are We Walking Alongside? Philippians 2:5-11 To walk alongside, rather than stand against, means that, in the words of Episcopal clergyman Phillips Brooks, we will "face the music even when we don't like the tune." Let’s apply that to Jesus’ walk to Golgotha and our being there with Him today. How many parents, teachers, or bosses have told us to just "bloom where you are planted." However ugly or unpleasant, however awful the conditions, total the rejection, unfair the employer, displeasing the working conditions, the Christian doesn't bolt and run. Oh, they may need to listen to Prudent Polly but maybe not Negative Nellie. The Christian who truly follows Jesus, knows that as Jesus walks alongside them in the midst of their trials, so we need to walk alongside Jesus in the midst of His. Saying this another way, “The Christian who follows Jesus looks for ways to serve God, even in the most difficult places.” Christians are people who love fully, even in the thick of things. In the words that author Norman Cousins made famous: "Accept the Diagnosis; Defy the Prognosis." Or to add another adage, Prosper the Possibilities. Jesus was walking into the thick of things as He approached these last few weeks, long ago. He had some real popularity now, He was a crowd pleaser, and a short parade would greet Him in the days to come, as He would ride through a crowd of momentary admirers. But it would soon turn ugly and unpleasant and awful with rejection and mockery and brutality and worse just around the corner. Jesus would accept the diagnosis and yet defy the prognosis, and He would surely prosper the possibilities, even with the weight of the cross on His back. During the course of His earthly ministry, Jesus was always on the move. Most rabbis and their disciples established "schools" where others could come to them for instruction, debate and discourse. The great rabbis taught from a seated position, demonstrating that they were in their place, while their students crowded around them, standing in attention to hear their words. Jesus broke with this tradition by spending His entire career as an itinerant preacher, wandering from town to town, refusing to set up some "Jesus school." To be a student in the Jesus seminary meant a walking-talking pilgrimage. Jesus went to the lakefront to invite Simon Peter and Andrew into becoming disciples. He went to the other side of the tracks and there met a Samaritan woman by the well. He made a house call to cure Simeon's mother-in-law and on another occasion “remotely” cured a Roman centurion’s servant. (Talk about being contemporary…) He walked right into Levi's tax booth to invite him to "follow Me." He interrupted a funeral 2 to raise up the widow of Nain's son (Luke 7:11f). You may not be familiar with that one. He crossed the Sea of Galilee to heal the demonic known as Legion. (Now there’s a fascinating story.) He entered Jarius' home to restore his daughter's life. Even after His resurrection, Jesus was on the move, walking and talking His way to Emmaus with two chattering men. Jesus, however, not only met people where they were physically, He also met them where they were emotionally and spiritually. He let the weeping woman anoint His feet with ointment and tears, rather than engage her in any discourse. He stood before the crowds and before preaching His great "sermon on the plain," He healed them and soothed those with troubled spirits. When it was simple hunger that stirred the people's spirits, He provided them with loaves and fishes. Unlike other powerful, charismatic figures of His day or ours, Jesus was never "full of Himself." This hymn from Philippians makes it clear that in order for Jesus to be the Christ, He had to, in fact, empty Himself. But it was not just an incarnate Christ emptied of divinity. God becoming man, was not just giving up, being God. Jesus emptied Himself without sacrificing the authentic and enduring quality of divinity that He possessed. Jesus was free of our emotional and worldly baggage, and had emptied Himself of all the loads, all of us carry strapped to our backs, such as the weights of ego, of self-importance, of insecurity, of bigotry, of fear and worry and complaint and distrust. Unlike the rest of us, Jesus never had any baggage to carry around. He emptied Himself of all the trash we so burdensomely tote around. He was free to serve others. Jesus never stood against anyone. Oh, He had His disputes with the authorities of the day, but even with them, who He acknowledged as being so close to being righteous yet so far from being right, He was inviting to have them turn from their pompous pride to better serve the people. He always walked alongside everyone. He journeyed with people where they were and as they went. Over and over, Jesus crossed the street and "came to where he or she was," and He still crosses the streets and comes to where we are today. Jesus "humbled Himself" and "emptied Himself" in an act of obedience for a greater goal. Christ's mission was not completed simply by the act of the incarnation at Christmas, but by the climatic ending of His death on the cross and then the resurrection. It is this obedience, even to death, that gives the human Jesus His claim to Lordship and which encourages His disciples to follow in His footsteps. Consider this scenario, before we set out on a journey, we are always sure to "fill 'er up." We fill the gas tank to the top so that we can travel as far and as fast as possible before we are forced to stop. We also fill up the trunk with luggage, the back seat with junk, the glove compartment with maps and flashlights and still try to 3 take a tool box, first aid kit, and of course, an igloo filled with drinks and a big bag of munchies. We don't want to journey without first being prepared. Jesus never worried about "filling 'er up." He was constantly setting out empty so that He could pick up others' baggage on the way - their sorrows, their sins, their illnesses, their despair. Jesus never stood on ceremony. He sat down with grimy, playful, little children as comfortably as He reclined on the couches at a Pharisee's formal dinner party. What is more, Jesus offered some very strange rules for the road: go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, give your coat and your cloak also, cross the road to help, don't cross the road to hide. In the gospel readings of these last days of Jesus, we read just how far Jesus would journey on the road that runs through the human condition. He rode a clumsy colt into Jerusalem to be in that holy city during the most sacred of celebrations, the Passover. He climbed to the Upper Room to dine with His disciples for His Last Supper. He traveled alone through His lonely prayers in Gethsemane, and then He left in the custody of the soldiers. He confronted Caiaphas. He stood before Pilate, then Herod Antipas, then Pilate again, then the crowds, sojourning with Barabbas. He stumbled to Golgotha. He took His final journey up onto the cross. Jesus would take this journey for you and me. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to live a life, not standing against, but of walking alongside. The life of a disciple is a double movement - a life of dying with Christ and a life of rising with Christ; a life of emptying oneself and a life of utter fulfillment; a life of taking up one's cross and dying to sin and a life of taking up one's bed and rejoicing; a life of travail and a life of enjoyment; a life that leads to death and a life of resurrection. Having accomplished the goal of His mission, in His obedient death on the cross, this incarnate Jesus, this God born man, is now raised and exalted to complete Lordship. "Every knee shall bow; every tongue shall confess to God, that Jesus Christ is Lord." His journey continues in the songs we raise and in the lives we lead. Let us praise Him today, and still profess Him tomorrow! As we walk our journeys of faith with Jesus, may we be walking alongside Him all the way.