 As we keep the Lenten journey, we follow Jesus in the way of the cross, sustained by the Scriptures, and moving towards Holy Week as we follow through the purposes of God. Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 2, verses 5 to 8. This is how you should think among yourselves with the mind that you have because you belong to the Messiah Jesus, who though in God's form did not regard his equality with God as something he ought to exploit. Instead, he emptied himself and received the form of a slave being born in the likeness of humans. And then, having human appearance, he humbled himself and became obedient even to death, yes, even the death of the cross. That is part of one of the most extraordinary early Christian poems. Whether Paul wrote it himself or was quoting somebody else doesn't really matter because the poem means what it means in the context of his letter to the Philippians as a whole. And it is about the humility of God. That is the extraordinary truth which shines through this part of Philippians. That Jesus himself was in the form of God. He was equal with God. He was in the much later language the second person of the Trinity. Now, what might that mean in the ancient world? The world which Paul knew, the world of Caesar, the world of Alexander the Great, people who reckoned that they were divine or that they were the son of God or something like that. They gave themselves heirs. They exploited that status to be people of fabulous wealth and power and empire in the human sense. And what Paul is doing very explicitly in this passage, remembering that Philippi was a Roman colony, they knew all about Caesar as Lord. Paul is teaching them what it means to say that Jesus is Lord. And there's a poem which expresses this brilliantly by the First World War poet Edward Silito. It's called Jesus of the Skars. It's not perhaps as well known as it should be, but it's the contrast between the gods of this world who are powerful and arrogant and bullying and the God of the Gospel. And the crucial verse goes like this. That's an amazingly powerful and thoroughly Pauline insight that what Paul is doing is casting our gaze towards the wounded God, the incarnate God who suffers on the cross, who is bruised for our transgressions, wounded for our iniquities, and so on. The God who comes to the place of the world's pain and sorrow in order to take it upon himself, in order to deal with it, in order to do what Caesar couldn't do, what Alexander the Great couldn't do, what none of our political or social leaders could do to stand at the place where the world is in direst pain to take its full force upon himself and to defeat it to win the victory. And that's why the poem goes on, that therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus the Messiah is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus, not Caesar, Jesus, not Alexander, Jesus, not, well, you fill in the blanks. That's what the journey into Holy Week is all about. That's what Palm Sunday is all about. Jesus riding on the donkey to the throne which was his cross. Jesus coming to be king, and all four Gospels make it clear that when he is crucified he has the words King of the Jews above his head. That's the point. Jesus is redefining what power is. He's redefining what kingship is. In that very ambiguous production, the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, there's one very powerful moment at that point when Jesus is riding into Jerusalem and his followers in Jesus Christ Superstar are saying cheerfully, you're going to get the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. In other words, we want an ordinary human kingdom with you at the top and us close beside you. And Jesus turns to them and says, neither you nor any of the crowds understand what power is, understand what glory is at all. And then he weeps over the city as he had wept over the tomb of his friend not long before. And part of the point of Philippians 2 is to say, with verse 5 but actually the whole larger passage, this is the model for how to be church, for how to be Christian. One of the things we are learning about as we engage in the Lenten journey and particularly the journey through Holy Week itself to Good Friday and then Holy Saturday and then on to Easter is that to be the people of God, the followers of Jesus, we have to go the same way. We cannot give ourselves airs and say that because we're Christians, we are the top people, we're okay, we're doing fine, we ought to run everything. No, because we are followers of Jesus, we should share his humility. We do not regard our status as something to exploit. We regard it as constituting a vocation like that of Jesus to go to the place where the world is in pain, to weep there, to pray there, to bring God's healing, the healing of the cross where it is most needed. And so we pray, Almighty Father, give us again that sense of Jesus going to the place where the world is in pain so that in the power of the Spirit we may go there with him to pray with your people who suffer with your people who are being killed or tortured to pray for all the wounded of the world so that your love may reach to the places where it is most needed and bring healing and hope. Amen.