Christ Hymns of Philippians
‘In the Form of God…’Philippians 2:5-11 [Part 3] ‘Who do people say that I am?’ Jesus asked Peter as they passed through Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8:27). It’s a question that has echoed down the ages. There have been all sorts of answers, some of them saying more about...
Christ Hymns of Philippians
‘He emptied Himself…Philippians 2:5-11 [Part 4] ‘Greed is good,’ proclaimed Gordon Gekko, the rapacious financier in the 1987 film Wall Street. Indeed, we oftentimes can be tempted to think that grasping, self-serving exploitation is a fundamental human trait. The...
Christ Hymns of Philippians
‘Born in human likeness…’Philippians 2:5-11 [Part 5] ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.’ These opening lines of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 point out a problem. How do you describe the indescribable? When something is...
Christ Hymns of Philippians
‘Obedient unto death…’ Philippians 2:5-11 [Part 6] The Old Testament book of Isaiah is oftentimes called the fifth Gospel, because of its vision of justice, its words of comfort, and its oracles foreshadowing the coming of Christ as found, for example, in the prophecy...
Christ Hymns of Philippians
‘Obedient to the point of death…’Philippians 2:5-11 [Part 7] The consummate expression of the Orthodox Christian faith is the Nicene Creed, recited at the Divine Liturgy. The Creed, formulated by the first two Ecumenical Councils, is the flowering of the witness of...
