Posture

 Philippians 2:5-11

I've been thinking a lot about posture. About how we hold ourselves, how we haven't been able to kneel much this past year. How we have seen a man die because someone kneeled on them. How Jesus' posture will be this week. When we do the stations of the cross Jesus falls three times. Falls down, from exhaustion, despair, sorrow, from being left alone to die. 

We start today with the posture of hails and hosannas. People throwing up their hands, cheering, laying down their cloaks in welcome all postures of honor, hailing someone great. All a posture of praise and uplifting. This wasn't quite the posture Jesus expected. It is the posture which leads to him being known as someone the Romans wouldn't want around, because all posture like this should go to Caesar. 

We have so many more postures to go through this week. The posture of reclining at the table and enjoying a good meal. One shared with friends. The posture of being on our knees praying and the disciples laying down and falling asleep on the ground. The posture of being arrested, of being bound and led away from his loved ones, his friends, all those who loved him.

It makes me very conscious of  how I hold myself this week. How will I receive each of these readings. We start out this day holding our palms, walking along. Should we by Good Friday be on the floor, be closest to downcast and grief as we can be? Should we hold our bodies around ourselves protecting ourselves, because this is what happens. All these friends and loved ones desert Jesus at his most critical hour. 

It certainly is quite the shift from today to Friday, to Saturday where they are all hidden in upper rooms, sitting, while Jesus lies in the tomb. From raising our hands to making a fist, from shouting and honoring to curling up and hiding so many different postures we find this week. I wonder if we can watch and pray. If we can somehow take all these postures and find where we fit in this story. Because this story is life-giving. 

This story shows how God's power is not the same as the worlds. It is just as humbling as Philippians says. We become empty. So often we come in the posture of fullness. So full we can't be humble, we can't kneel at one anther's feet and put on the towel of servant hood. We are full of answers, full of our own knowledge, full of how it should be done and what everyone else is to do. But we need to become empty. Empty of all the ideas, empty of all the answers and willing to question, willing to receive someone else's story. 

This is the story of Jesus, who wasn't so equal to God that he thought he was better than all his followers. Jesus didn't look for himself to be lifted up into a high place, to rule over all who came to him. Humble, humble enough to talk with a woman at a well, a Samaritan, no less. Humble enough to help a cripple man who could never make it to the water at Siloam to be healed. Humble enough to listen to his mother and change water into wine. Humble enough to not get angry at the men lowering a friend through his roof and instead send him walking out of his house. 

This is the posture we are to aspire to. The one which leads us to realizing we don't know it all. We don't have it all. We don't even have enough humbleness to realize we are unworthy to untie the thong of his sandal. Yet we are invited into this story. We are invited into this amazing story so we might realize the posture we take. Where we stand in relation to this overwhelming story of love. Then maybe our posture will be one which is fully and truly our own. One in which our knees bow before another to show how important they are in this world. This is truly a posture we need to become more familiar with.