By Gwen Gustafson-Zook, interim campus pastor
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-11 (NRSV)
An one who is Irish, I’ve been intrigued by Celtic Spirituality and the things I can learn from the earthy faith tradition that grew up amidst the mossy emerald isles. One thing I’ve learned is that within Celtic spirituality the salmon holds particular Christological significance, as an ancient symbol of Christ. You see, the Salmon ventures out, full of glistening vitality, lives in the wild, then makes her way home – spent and worn. And in one final act of self-giving, she lays her eggs and dies, giving her very life for the sake of the new life that is yet to come. She embodies the fullness of life and death and life again. She does this not because she thinks this is a good idea, but because this is her essence. This is how she embodies LIFE and LOVE in the world.
Jesus, as the Incarnation of Divine LOVE in the world, responded to not only the suffering of others, but to his own suffering with pure love. Unwilling to turn to violence, he instead embodied the LOVE that is God, living and modeling a kind of ego-free, self-giving LOVE revealing that WE ARE ONE; held together in the powerful, Cosmic Love of God. What hurts one person, hurts us all. Out of a profound and deep embodiment and essence of LOVE, Jesus loved even to death. This natural continuation of his life of love was and is a gift of pure LOVE; Jesus put everything on the line convinced that Love was and is stronger, even than death. This act of pure love revealed his essence. And in the process, we see once and for all that God, revealed in Jesus, the Christ, is love incarnate. God is not violent. God is not tyrannical. God is LOVE; the One who loves us in the precious fragility of our beings – and tenderly calls us to live in and through and as LOVE in the world; To be one with God, in Love.
In these days of gun-violence and war-mongering and death and destruction; Of racial injustices and the widening gap between those who have enough to live and those who don’t; Of bigotry and hatred and fear… In these days, the Good News of Jesus Christ is this: LOVE prevails.
Over hatred.
Over fear.
Over violence.
Even over death.
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-11 (NRSV)
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.