Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Rev. Dr Joseph Wood, Dean of Students and Senior Lecturer in Theology and Church History, for writing this devotional.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Philippians 2: 1-11
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Devotional Thought
This passage reminds me of the story, Les Miserables. At the beginning of the story we learn that the main character, Jean Valjean, spent nearly twenty years in prison for stealing some bread to feed his poor family. When his punishment was complete, he was released but put on probation for life. He was told that if he failed to report to his probation officer for any reason, he would return to prison, to a life of slavery.
Because he had been in prison for so long, when he was released, he did not know what to do. He had no money, no family, and nowhere to go. He found himself seeking refuge in a monastery, where a bishop kindly invited him in and gave him a hot meal and place to stay for the night. During the night, Jean Valjean decided to steal some of the monastery’s things (gold, silver candle holders, cups and plates) and he ran away. Not long after this, the police caught him and returned him to the monastery to face the bishop. When the police explained to the bishop that this man had said the goods were given to him as a gift (which they clearly did not believe), the bishop responded in a way that changed Jean Valjean’s life forever. The bishop agreed and said yes, these things were given to him. He did not steal them. The police did not believe the bishop but could not do anything about it because the bishop had not condemned Jean Valjean.
The bishop had the chance to put him back into prison for life, but in that moment, he exhibited an absurd expression of humility and forgiveness. And Jean Valjean then prays:
“Why did I allow this man, to touch my soul and teach me to love? He treated me like any other, he gave me his trust, he called me brother, my life he claims for God above, can such things be? For I had come to hate the world, this world that always hated me! Take and eye for an eye, turn your heart into stone, this is all I have lived for, this is all I have known. One word from him and I’d be back, beneath the lash, upon the rack, instead he offers me my freedom, I feel my shame inside me like a knife, he told me that I have a soul, how does he know? What spirit comes to move my life? Is there another way to go?”
Jean Valjean experienced forgiveness, an experience he never had before. It changed his life, and the rest of the story follows him as he sought to respond to the love he had experienced by loving others in the same way.
Paul says, ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...humble, obedient, self-giving’. Jean Valjean experienced this in his encounter with the bishop, and from that moment on his interaction with others (even with his enemies) was led by humility, love, and forgiveness.
Prayer
God of all grace, we give you thanks this day for the self-giving act of love you have shown in Christ Jesus. May we, by the power of your Spirit at work within us, have the same mind that was in Christ, leading us to live lives of humility, forgiveness, and self-giving for the sake of others. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Rev. Joseph Wood, PhD (Dean of Students and Senior Lecturer in Theology and Church History)