Palm Sunday - The King of All Didn’t Practice Social Distancing - Philippians 2:5-11
Palm Sunday - The King of All Didn’t Practice Social Distancing - Philippians 2:5-11
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The King of All Didn’t Practice Social Distancing
Philippians 2:5-8 – April 5, 2020
When was the last time you left your house? Was it yesterday? Has it been a week? Two weeks? Maybe you’re starting to think you’ll never leave home again. It wasn’t too long ago, on one of my days off, that I was thinking, “What would it be like to never leave the house?” I could spend all my time with my family. I could order everything I needed from Amazon or DoorDash. It’d be interesting to see what that’s like. I guess my question’s been answered.
We’re practicing social distancing right now to keep each other healthy. We’re doing our part so we don’t get sick, and so we don’t spread the disease to others. Wash your hands. Stay six feet away. Don’t go out except to buy groceries. We’re trying to stay away from the infected and ultimately prevent our own deaths.
Today, we see that Jesus didn’t practice social distancing. Even though he is the King of all, the God who could’ve isolated himself up on his throne in heaven, he broke social distancing protocol.
I. From the infected
The time has now come. Jesus’ journey is coming to its end. It’s a journey that began long before he raised Lazarus from the dead. Before he gave sight to the blind man. Before he revealed his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. Before he was tempted, baptized, or born. It’s a journey that began in eternity.
In eternity, God planned to save his children. God didn’t want his children to sin against him, but he knew they would. He didn’t create robots programmed to love and serve him. What kind of love would that have been? He created Adam and Eve with free will so that they could choose to love and serve him instead of forcing them to love him.
But God, knowing all things, knew they would disobey. Now, an unmerciful God would say, “That’s it. You blew it. No second chances.” A sadistic God would have created human beings just hoping they would fail so he could punish them. An uncaring God would leave the sinful world alone to spin to its doom.
That’s not the God we have. The King of all didn’t practice social distancing. As Paul wrote in the his letter to the Philippians, “Christ Jesus, … being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Instead of staying home in heaven, Jesus came to earth to be a human being just like us. Instead of washing his hands of this sinful world, Jesus lived among us filthy sinners.
Throughout his whole life, Jesus didn’t keep his distance from sinners. When Zacchaeus the tax collector invited Jesus to his house, Jesus gladly accepted even though he knew what people would say about him: “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” When a man who had leprosy came to him, Jesus didn’t reel back and say, “Stay away from me.” When the leper said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean,” Jesus said, “I am willing. Be clean!” Jesus ate with tax collectors and “sinners,” and when people called him out, he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus didn’t practice social distancing from the infected world. He didn’t want to. He loved the world too much to stay away. He didn’t need to. Jesus is too holy to be infected by our sin. Instead of catching our disease of sin, when Jesus comes to us, he brings his holiness and healing.
This is good news for you, since you’re infected, too. The infection of sin has passed down from Adam and Eve, all the way to your parents and, through them, to you. The Holy Spirit says through King David in Psalm 51, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” He says through the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, “In Adam all die,” and in Romans 5, “Through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners.”
Your infection has symptoms. It isn’t asymptomatic like Covid-19 can be. Infected by sin, you commit sin. You lie. You hate. You doubt. Sin shows up in your mouth. In your hands. In your mind. Your sin affects your relationship with God, your relationship with your family, your relationship with everyone else. How could anyone not keep their distance from you?
But the King of all does not practice social distancing. He will not stay away from you. He rides on in majesty into your life through his Word and sacrament. He enters your heart with his love and forgiveness. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Jesus, the King of all, comes near to heal you.
II. To prevent his death
The time has now come for Jesus’ journey to end. When Jesus was going to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead as we heard last week, his disciples said, “Rabbi, a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” Don’t you know they want to kill you, Jesus?
Jesus could have stayed away from Jerusalem. In his hometown of Capernaum, he would have been safer. If he just stayed home, only going out when necessary, he could have kept on living. If he just stayed away from Jerusalem, he wouldn’t have to die. Maybe he could even move to another country. Start over. Keep on teaching and preaching and healing. But Jesus didn’t come to earth to live here forever. He came to die.
And so, the King of all willingly rides the donkey up the Mount of Olives and into Jerusalem. For a moment, he is treated as the King he is. The people sing his praises, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” They lay down cloaks and palm branches before him. But their praise is prelude to the chants of “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Instead of cloaks and palm branches in his path, a purple robe on his shoulders and a crown of thorns on his head. Nailed to a cross.
Jesus doesn’t keep distance from his doom. He willingly enters it. He runs to the front lines in the war with sin. He “humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
It seems foolish for a man so respected, so loved, so helpful, so loving to give up his life. There’s so much more he could have done. What a waste! Only 33 years old. Cut down in the prime of life. Why not send someone else to die? He was the King of all. Why does he have to go?
There’s a little part of us that wants Jesus to prevent his death. To socially distance himself from the cross. We’re like Jesus’ disciple Peter, who once said, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” We’re like the people who followed Jesus after he fed 5,000 men. They said about him, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” They intended to make him their earthly king.
We’re often like those followers of Jesus. We think, “If only I can latch myself onto the king’s coattails, then life will be good.” If I just show enough loyalty to Jesus, he’ll reward me with a good life. If I wave my palm branch wildly enough, maybe the King will notice me.
Jesus had to say to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” He had to tell those kingmakers, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life.”
Aha! And that’s the key. Jesus hasn’t come to make earthly life better. The Christian life is no guarantee of earthly happiness. Any happiness we have here spoils eventually. The food goes bad. The clothes get holes in them. The car breaks down. The house begins to leak. The friendships break up. The memories fade. Pandemic spreads. People die.
“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied,” says the Apostle Paul. Jesus must get down from the donkey. He must go up the cross. There he must pay our price for sin. He must pay the price to set us free forever. He goes to the cross to give us eternal life. And eternal life is where the happiness doesn’t. Where memories don’t fade. Where no one ever dies.
Paul’s words we’re studying today are encouragement for us to love during this time when it can be hard to love. He says, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” Now, the Holy Spirit isn’t asking us to break social distancing guidelines. But he is encouraging us to think of others during this time. How can we still show our love? How can we think about the interests of others? Don’t bunker down completely. Don’t severe the bonds of love. Jesus broke social distancing protocol for us to bind us together as his body to show love whether we’re together or apart.
Katelyn and I were in a long distance relationship for most of our pre-marriage life. It wasn’t always easy for us to show each other how much we loved each other. We called each on video chat in the morning. We watched movies and TV shows long distance. We called each other at lunch. We sent each other funny pictures we found. Did I mention we called each other?
Right now, it can be easy to think of ourselves first. But remember your Christian brothers and sisters, too. Give them a call. Ask how they’re doing. Let them know you can help them. If you need something, reach out to them for help. Jesus has broken down and forgiven the natural selfish social distancing between us and brought us together.
Jesus isn’t calling us to break social distancing guidelines. But thank God, he did. He took on the nature of a servant, he became a human being like us, to heal our infection. He didn’t consider death—even death on a cross—too low for him. The King of all, the Lord of life, didn’t practice social distancing so that he could bring us eternal life and bind us together with him forever. Amen.
