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The way of the cross is the actual way of victory. Jesus absorbs the worst of what humanity and even the devil can do to him, and he spurns the shame of it all.
Philippians 2 opens a door to the Gospels that jolts our sensibilities. Saint Paul, it turns out, is up to something a little more theologically subtle than “You know, Jesus was humble; so, how about you start being humble, too?”
Paul sets before us a glimpse at the two ages of which Scripture speaks and of which our one reality is composed. There is “this present age” that our Lord sometimes refers to as “this present evil age” and, second, the “the age to come,” which is actually already here for those within the Holy Church; those baptized into Christ. Christians live in the age to come right now, not fully, but in part, just as that age is here not fully but in part.
These two ages encapsulate the principle theme and pattern presented in Philippians 2. As N.T. Wright has long taught, this theme and pattern is another way of understanding the four Gospels. Saint Paul tells us that this “present evil age” is saturated by a theology of glory, while the age to come envelops a theology of the cross. They are two ways of understanding and interpreting all of reality, but especially the ways and nature of God and his holy Church. Put differently, they embody the things of men and the things of God, respectively.
We find both theologies—the glory one of this present evil age and the cross theology of the age to come—right here in Philippians 2. Christ was God but, contrary to the self-styled gods who were the Roman Caesars, the Creator of heaven and earth came “in the form of a servant.” It turns out that the Anointed King of all the Earth “did not count being equal with God a thing to be taken from others but rather, in the flesh, he engaged in astonishing self-giving for our salvation and transformation. “He made himself nothing, being born in the likeness of men,” though he was glorious, the Son of God. In the face of the extravagance and entitlement of Tiberius Rex, King Jesus “humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.” That’s the theology of the cross, the theology of the age to come, which broke into our reality by way of an execution on Golgotha and the surprising vacancy of a nearby tomb. This is a theology that stands in contrast to the theology of glory that seeks after signs, wonders, and spiritual intimacies with a domesticated Jesus.
Our present evil age is defined by wealth, glory, and pleasure. It is also a world of laws and power-plays, manipulation, status, and image. The theology of glory is the ideology of entitlement. It manifests itself through conspicuous consumerism, selfishness, the small-mindedness of envy, and the celebration of the cult of celebrity. It’s about glossy tabloid pictures. It’s about getting your own, your due. It is a culture of compensation: “I want to experience God, and it better be more titillating than I can imagine. I want goose bumps with my spiritual gifts and some divine pizzazz when I meditate. Show me your face O God; Moses wasn’t worthy, but I am.” The theology of glory wants a deity that’s nice and tidy: a sanitized cross. It’s defined by a Christianity that’s convenient and trendy.
But the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the age of Christ to come, is not a kingdom of power and glory but of suffering and humiliation. In the theology of the cross, the emphasis is on his suffering and his humiliation: our Great King beat up, bloodied and crucified naked for the world to see and mock, if they so choose. Get that picture and you begin to get an idea of what St Paul is getting at in Philippians 2. That is what Passion Sunday is all about: the theology of glory calls it the triumphal entry; meanwhile, Jesus weeps, lamenting the reality of the situation, knowing that he processes toward crucifixion — the theology of the cross. The theology of glory wants to see Jesus and his entourage take up residence in Jerusalem’s Palace; Christ’s theology of the cross has him beat down the Via Dolorosa and take up residence on Golgotha. The theology of glory has Jesus ascending David’s throne in Solomon’s portico; the theology of the cross has the Messiah nailed to a tree for his coronation. If you get the picture, then you’ll catch a glimpse of what Christ gave up for us. Get the picture and you’re getting intimate with God as God has revealed himself in Christ for us. And ultimately, your understanding of the divine glory will be turned on its head. The way of the cross is the actual way of victory. Jesus absorbs the worst of what humanity and even the devil can do to him, and he spurns the shame of it all.
Giving Up Glory
And what Christ gave up for us was two things in particular. First, glory. He made himself of lowly estate, shocking our sensibilities. We expect him to be kickin’ it with all kinds of royal perks. Instead, he’s betrayed by a friend he loved. The rest of the disciples leave him for dead in the cemetery of Gethsemane. No. The glory we expected was left behind. He exchanged that for the glory of a public execution.
According to Philippians 2, Mark’s Gospel is especially concerned to recount how, in his Incarnation, the Son of God hides his glory. He has hidden his majesty by becoming fully man. John’s Gospel highlights this startling fact in his opening chapter by declaring that God has become flesh and has tabernacled among us. In other words, the man Jesus of Nazareth is the true temple, the true locus of God’s presence on earth – not Mecca, not Tibet, and certainly not the pathetic remains of Herod’s temple in Jerusalem – the one now with a mosque on top of it. And yet, just as Isaiah prophesied, God’s Messiah isn’t what we expect, he hardly strikes us as majestic – let alone comparable to Solomon’s temple. In fact, Scripture leaves us with the opposite effect. The Christ of God is not atop of rolling clouds-a-thunder, but found at the end of an umbilical cord. And when all is said and done, God is left breastfeeding for survival. This is the theology of the cross.
Satan reveals his theology of glory when he tempts Jesus to get the crown without the cross. You have to remember that Jesus is fully human and the severity of this temptation is measured by the fact that he has given up his former glory. He knows perfect peace, perfect joy, happiness, and power. But instead of grasping what the human nature may want and what he as the Christ of God is entitled to, he obeys the Word of God and refuses the easy way to glory, He refuses to cater to felt needs. He is someone who is God and yet, unlike us, refuses to place himself at the center of the universe. While the First Adam craved after forbidden fruit, while Israel craved the glory of the nations and in the wilderness demanded the food they craved from Egypt; this Last Adam, this true Israel, is already obedient to the Word of God which is a word of the cross. You see, he gave up the word of glory; gave it up for the likes of you and me.
For a time, even his own disciples were card carrying members of a theology of glory. After Peter’s declaration in Matthew 16:16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” what does he do? As soon as Jesus begins to talk of death and the cross, he takes Jesus aside and says, “Whoa, settle down with the negativity. All this gloomy cross stuff is bumming us out. Maybe you’re not seeing things clearly, like us. The people are about to make you king. As your agent, let me tell you, things are going great: the miracles tour has been the gig of a lifetime, so let’s ride this gravy train all the way to Jerusalem. You’ve got to stop this stuff about cross and dying – we’re having success and you’re raining on the parade. Knock it off.” Jesus then sharply rebukes Peter, telling him and all the disciples that he has come to proclaim the gospel, not pander to the paparazzi. Here it is not Lucifer but one of his own disciples as the agent of temptation in the face of Golgotha.
Immediately, Jesus follows this with the theology of the cross – a cross that he will bear for us, but also one that he bequeaths to us. He tells his disciples that they must bear their own cross, that is, the Cross of Christ that they are to make their own. This is the life in the age to come in the here and now. But they couldn’t see it because he came in the humble form of a servant, and gave up his heavenly glory and its entitlements to live the life we do not and can not live.
Giving Up Blood
Second, Jesus gave up blood for us. Nails, blood, spear, torn flesh, corpse on a cold slab: this is our eternal salvation carried out in grotesquely physical categories. It’s these two things – glory and blood — that Christ, our God, gave up for us. His beatific glory he left behind in heaven; his blood he left behind on the instruments of his torture. By his blood, he makes atonement and we are reconciled to God — sins gone, perfect righteousness through obedience fulfilled.
Leviticus 17:10-11 says,
If anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face upon that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes the atonement by the life.
Old Testament law forbade eating (that is, drinking) blood because “the life is in the blood.” Then Jesus comes along and explodes the Jewish worldview by declaring in John 6, “Truly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him.” It is this life-giving, sin atoning blood that is offered to us in Holy Communion. “Take, drink. This is the cup of the New Covenant in my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
The atonement began with his bloody birth, his eight day circumcision, and it continued with his blood-sweat agony in Gethsemane and scourging in the Praetorium, and it climaxed with his crucifixion and the piercing of his side from which blood and water flowed. It is this blood, given to us under the auspices of wine and Holy Communion that we are to take and drink for our salvation. What was once forbidden in that animals could not truly atone for sins, we are now bid to have in our most intimate communion with the Christ whose blood truly atones. Christ gave up blood for us while in the inglorious state of a humiliated servant and thereby the Messiah of god, our Lord, saves from our sin, from the judgment due us, from even death.
The two things he gave up for us meet up in his bloody and humiliating death on the cross. What an inglorious sign of redemption: God bloodied. And yet, this is the sign of wisdom and power of God, this is the sign of power and mastery over the powers and kingdom of this world, and it should be marvelous to our eyes. Faith alone grasps the wisdom in divine foolishness, the power in God’s weakness. We may crave something spectacular: glory, not the cross; pride, not humiliation; a triumphal entry, not a painful crucifixion. But if you want to see God, don’t look directly into his awesome face. Your sin cannot bear his majestic holiness. Instead, see him as he has revealed himself clothed in humiliation and suffering of the Servant of Yahweh. Search for God according to a theology of the cross and you will find our Lord revealed in the two principle things he gave up for you.Then and only then will you begin to revel in the glory of the Cross and understand that this once-crucified Lord rules and reigns by grace and mercy, by giving all that he has, not taking all that you’ve got.
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