Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)   The Gospel message is full of great, paradoxical reversals.  Kings are thrown down and the humble are exulted.  The rich go hungry and the poor are lifted up.  Those who lose their lives find it.  The last become first.  And, perhaps most glaring of all: the dead are raised to life. Jesus himself is the paradigm of all of these great reversals.  He is the one who humbled himself to nothing, became poor, and gave up his life unto death.  But as Pastor Michael began to suggest yesterday: this was not a transaction or a quid-pro-quo.  It was not as if Jesus, simply by virtue of bowing low would automatically get lifted up.  This gets tricky because of our hang ups with high theological ideas like "predestination" and "God's plan."  But these concepts iron out the wrinkles of the Biblical story a bit too neatly sometimes.  I do not think that the Bible verses pointing to God's perfections intend to cancel out God's responsiveness within the relationships that he has with his people. Jesus, in humbling himself to nothing and submitting his life, in trust, to the Father to whom he commends his spirit—is acting out in real life the faith of the Psalms.  The psalms speak often of entrusting their cause to God.  Under threat of death and vast evil, the psalmists give themselves over to the judgement of God.  Take psalm 26, for example, where the Psalmist says "vindicate me, Lord, for I have led a blameless life."  This language of faith is all over the psalms: 7, 17, 24, 54, 69, 135, and any number of others.  Job comes to mind as well. As Jesus humbles himself to death: he entrusts himself to the Father.  And then all Creation holds its breath.  Will God respond, or will he remain silent?  How will the Father judge Jesus' case?  Will the ruling of the Romans and the Religious Leaders win the day in court, or will their verdict be reversed by God's higher court?  Indeed the higher court takes the case and God's justice determines Jesus' innocence.  He is vindicated from all charges of wrongdoing.  His punishment is reversed and he is raised to life.  But the ruling of God's Supreme Court goes still further: the Kings of earth that had made this unjust ruling against the Son—representative of all unjust rulings—are themselves displaced as rulers, and Jesus the righteous one is given their thrones.  He is the righteous one: the true King.  Not only that, the religious leaders who abused their positions are deposed from office, and Jesus himself replaces them as the true and perfect High Priest who ministers forever. The invitation to submit our cause and our lives in humility before God in the way of Jesus' cross joins our lives to this journey to the courtroom of God we where submit all our desires for vengeance and control to God, the judge, as Jesus did.  Somehow in this act of humbling ourselves, God raises us to the new life of Jesus whereby we learn new ways of trust, forgiveness, mercy, and love.  And so it is that the one who loses their life, does indeed find it.  So it is that our relationships with one another are transformed by the mindset of Christ Jesus.  

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