This morning I gave the children's sermon at church, which is almost as terrifying if not more so than giving the big people sermon. Stuart, our associate pastor, preached an excellent sermon on Philippians 2:1-13 which resolves around how we are to have the mind of Christ. So my job was to convey to a group of really sharp kids (some of whom are probably smarter than I am).
So how did I go about this? Photoshop. I got to thinking about how Jesus, being equal with God, submitted himself to this personification of servanthood and I wondered what would happen if the most powerful people in the world today did similar things. It would probably shock us.
So with the kids sitting on the stairs at the front of the sanctuary, I introduced this idea and then I showed them a picture of a famous person and asked them who they thought it was. I started by showing them a picture of President Obama (which they guessed correctly much to the relief of parents and social studies teachers). Then I showed them another picture that imagined...
...if arguably the most powerful man at the world served as a waiter at your restaurant. What restaurant with tuxedoed waiters serves hamburgers on a platter? I do not know. Regardless, I then showed a picture of Queen Elizabeth II and then wondered what it would be like if we saw her...
...working as a trash collector. Or what if future NFL Hall of Famer and national pizza pitchman Peyton Manning...
...was driving the city bus. Or perhaps if Taylor Swift (who was identified my enthusiastically and, that's right, swiftly) was working as...
...a very excited migrant farmer. Finally we finished with Batman. Though he technically not "real," he's still a powerful figure in the minds of 8 and 9 year old kids (and the 31 year old ones that occasionally do children's sermons). Imagine if the Dark Knight...
...read books to children at an after-school program. All of this is a silly thought process, but I think it somewhat captures the idea of what it meant for God incarnate to humbly love and serve in the way which Jesus loved and served. As ridiculous as it is to think about the Queen of England collecting trash or a superhero scowling though a reading of Yertle the Turtle, it is even more outrageous to imagine the most powerful being in the world submitting to a frail and finite form. He then served the very humans that openly rebelled against Divine Love and submitted himself to die in the most horrible way imaginable. All the while, the fact that Jesus was equal with God was not something that he exploited.
Thus our minds are to be like that of Christ. Humbly seeking to serve and love our God and those around us.