1, PRAYER
.2. MEDITATION
3. SONG
https://youtu.be/xHagUJNNugo?si=mUQCBjR38KfeRFsa
4. NARRATIVE
Allowing Life to Wax and Wane
Palm Sunday
Jesus’ state was divine, yet he did not cling to equality with God, but he emptied himself. —Philippians 2:6–7
This week’s meditations focus on a surrendering love, particularly as modeled by Jesus. Father Richard Rohr reflects on Jesus’ intentional path of descent:
In the overflow of rich themes on Palm Sunday, I am going to direct us toward the great parabolic movement described in Philippians 2. Most consider that this was originally a hymn sung in the early Christian community. To give us an honest entranceway, let me offer a life-changing quote from C. G. Jung’s (1875–1961) Psychological Reflections:
In the secret hour of life’s midday the parabola is reversed, death is born. The second half of life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase, exuberance, but death, since the end is its goal. The negation of life’s fulfilment is synonymous with the refusal to accept its ending. Both mean not wanting to live, and not wanting to live is identical with not wanting to die. Waxing and waning make one curve. [1]
The hymn from Philippians artistically, honestly, yet boldly describes that “secret hour” Jung refers to, when God in Christ reversed the parabola, when the waxing became waning. It says it starts with the great self-emptying or kenosis that we call the Incarnation and ends with the Crucifixion. It brilliantly connects the two mysteries as one movement, down, down, down into the enfleshment of creation, into humanity’s depths and sadness, and into a final identification with those at the very bottom (“took the form of a slave,” Philippians 2:7). Jesus represents God’s total solidarity with, and even love of, the human situation, as if to say, “nothing human is abhorrent to me.” God, if Jesus is right, has chosen to descend—in almost total counterpoint with our humanity that is always trying to climb, achieve, perform, and prove itself.
This hymn says that Jesus leaves the ascent to God, in God’s way, and in God’s time. Most of us understandably start the journey assuming that God is “up there,” and our job is to transcend this world to find “him.” We spend so much time trying to get “up there,” we miss that God’s big leap in Jesus was to come “down here.” What freedom! And it happens better than any could have expected. “Because of this, God lifted him up” (Philippians 2:9). We call the “lifting up” resurrection or ascension. Jesus is set as the human blueprint, the standard in the sky, the oh-so-hopeful pattern of divine transformation.
Trust the down, and God will take care of the up. This leaves humanity in solidarity with the life cycle, but also with one another, with no need to create success stories for ourselves or to create failure stories for others. Humanity in Jesus is free to be human and soulful instead of any false climbing into “Spirit.” This was supposed to change everything, and I trust it still will.
References:
[1] C. G. Jung: Psychological Reflections: A New Anthology of His Writings, 1905–1961, ed. Jolande Jacobi (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 323.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2011), 122–124.
5. MEDITATION
Almighty and everliving God,
in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature,
and to suffer death upon the cross,
giving us the example of his great humility:
Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering,
and also share in his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
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