https://app.dropwave.io/episode/54c5f900-0580-42d2-a6ac-892ee164e259/palmarum-palm-sunday-lent-6-second-sunday-in-passiontide-ad-2025.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

The Epistle from Philippians tells us of the state of humiliation of Jesus Christ. But before we unpack what this means, it’s important to note what this does not mean. It does not mean, first of all, that Jesus relinquished His divinity. No. Ever since our Lord’s incarnation, which we celebrated two-and-a-half weeks ago —. Ever since our Lord’s incarnation, He has been fully God and fully man. It is the union of these two natures that enables Jesus to be our Savior and the only Mediator between God and Man. As fully God, He can overcome sin; as fully Man, He is our perfect Substitute who can take our sin and die in our place.

In His earthly ministry, Jesus did not always or fully use His Divine nature. He did not always act according to His rights and power as God. But He always remained — and still remains — 100% God and 100% man.

Everything that Jesus does, He does as both God and Man. Jesus never stops being God. He has two natures, but they are joined together inseparably such that Jesus is one person. That means whatever we can say of the Person of Jesus, we confess He does as both God and man. So when Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and fills all things, He does so as both God and Man. When He makes Himself present in the Sacrament of the Altar, He does so as both God and Man. And when He acted in humility, He did so as both God and Man.

The second error we want to guard against comes about because almost none of the English translations of this passage in Philippians are especially good — and it might sound to you as though God the Son is subordinate to His Father. That’s a Trinitarian error that says the Second Person of the Trinity has a lesser kind of glory and majesty and holiness than His Father. And that’s wrong. According to His humanity, Jesus is subordinate to the Father. But according to His divinity, Jesus is 100% equal to the Father in glory and majesty and holiness.

So Paul is saying something like this: Christ Jesus, while possessing the nature of God, did not consider His being equal with God a thing to be grasped after or clutched at for His own gain — but rather, for a time, He deprived Himself of exercising His divinity.

Jesus, who is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity and the image of the invisible God —. Jesus, who is co-equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit —. Jesus, who appeared as the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, who walked with Adam in the Garden in the cool of the day, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and spoke to him as a man speaks to his friend —. Jesus, who appears on the Mount of Transfiguration shining with the brightness of ten thousand suns —. He is the One who has all glory and power and might because He is God.

Yet He lays this aside, because He knows He doesn’t have to secure this authority and power for Himself. Like He does with His own life: no one takes it from Him. He can lay it down of His own accord; and He can take it up again. So, also, Jesus lays aside the exercise of His divinity, and, when His saving work has been completed, He receives it back from His Father. That’s why Jesus says at the end of Matthew: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Notice that — “has been given” — that is, by His Father.

And what does Jesus do with that authority? He authorizes His disciples to make disciples by Baptizing them in His name, and teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded them. So it is that this morning, Kylie, that you also received this Sacrament according to the Lord’s institution. Jesus acts according to His promise. And we can say with confidence that you have been given God’s name and His promise of salvation.

The Father receives the Sacrifice of the Son as the just payment for the sin of the world. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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.

This, also, is what happened this morning with the rite of confirmation. Abby and Kylie, you opened your mouths to confess that Jesus is Lord and we have received you into communicant membership with us. That is how Jesus acts and speaks following His resurrection. We’ll hear about that more in the coming weeks. For now, though, we are considering what it means that Jesus gives up the rights He has as God.

There’s also possibly a third error we need to guard against here, too. Because I think this passage might make it sound like Jesus is humbling Himself in order to prove Himself to His Father. — as though Jesus had to prove that He really could be a perfect Man and obey His Father perfectly. — and then because Jesus was just so completely perfect and submissive that the Father had pity on Him and decided to give His Son’s glory back to Him. No.

We must reject any sense that Jesus is doing this for Himself. Jesus had nothing to prove. He didn’t need to prove to Himself that He was worthy of being God. And He didn’t need to prove Himself to His Father. Jesus sets aside His glory not to justify Himself or to defend His ability to be God, but solely out of His great love for you.

So to state these three aspects of Jesus’ state of humiliation positively: 1. Jesus never stops being God. 2. Jesus, according to His divinity, is equal with God. 3. Jesus has nothing to prove.

Now why is all this important? What comfort does this doctrine give us? It has to do with one of the attributes of God: He is impassible. That’s a big word that means that God does not and cannot experience effects from what happens outside Him. No external agent can change God. God does not change. More precisely for the text at hand: God does not feel emotion or pain as you and I do. He cannot be harmed or wounded. He cannot suffer.

This is important, because if God cannot suffer, then the suffering and pain that you deserve because of your sins is something that He can never experience. If God cannot suffer, then He cannot truly stand in your place as your substitute. And He cannot bear the wrath of God against sin in your place. If God cannot suffer, He remains outside your human experience. And it would mean that He would only know your sorrow because of His omniscience.

But Jesus, having set aside His divinity for a time, can suffer. Not only can He suffer what you deserve, but He can also understand every part of your own weakness and heartache because He experienced it Himself — in His own flesh!

He has felt every temptation, endured every heartache that you have. Every pain that has pressed your heart, every loved one’s loss that you have mourned. Every evil word spoken against you. Every betrayed trust. The heartache of difficult choices that come because you have a sinful heart and live in a sinful world.

Every violation you have experienced, whether of your body or your mind, your spirit or your possessions. He has known abandonment and abuse and slander. He has felt your pain of not being able to give up your sinful habits and addictions. Every moment of anxiety and the sense of overwhelming helplessness. Every attack of depression; every jolt of your pain.