Lectionary Reflection for Lent 5C on Philippians 3:4b-14

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE

Have you ever moved into a new home and completely altered the way it looked? Maybe you moved some furniture around or added a coat of paint to some walls. Perhaps you changed a dining room into a living room or a bedroom into a study. Or possibly you went as far as to break down some walls, build some new rooms, or add a second storey.

I love watching the British home building show, Grand Design. I am always amazed at the lengths people will go to, the risks they will take, and the financial stress they will endure just to create a home that fits their lives and personalities. As human beings, we have a natural tendency to want to change our world—and, among the creatures on our planet, we have a unique capacity to do it. Yet, for all our power over our environment, all our technology, and all our psychological insight into our humanity, we are collectively more miserable than perhaps we’ve ever been. For many of us the life we long for somehow always feels like it’s just out of reach.

For people of Christian faith, changing the world is an ordinary part of our culture. We are always talking about God’s purpose for our lives, winning people for Christ, and going into the world to make disciples. For a Christian, to not want to change the world is considered a sign of a lack of commitment, obedience to God, and faith. We are all supposed to be evangelising our friends and neighbours all the time. But the foundation of the Gospel is not changing the world. It is repentance—changing our hearts and lives. Because when you change your inner world, you change your outer world, even if nothing changes.

PAUL’S LONGING

In the epistle reading for Lent 5C, we get a glimpse into the Apostle Paul’s life and longings. He had lived in service of Christ for a long time and had planted churches all over the world as it was known then. Toward the end of his life, he was imprisoned for his faith and wrote the letter to the Philippians. While we might expect him to be wrestling with his faith and to be raging against his chains, this is not the case. Philippians is perhaps Paul’s most joyful letter, as he shares simple but profound insights into the life of faith.

In the third chapter, we read that Paul has three primary longings: to know Christ, to know the power of Christ’s resurrection, and to share in Christ’s suffering. Characteristically, Paul’s longings are not his personal wishes. They are what he believes all followers of Jesus should be aiming for.

To Know Christ

When Paul expresses his desire to know Christ, he’s not talking about getting to know the Christian religion. He’s not talking about being in euphoric worship services or having transcendent spiritual experiences—as helpful as these things may be. He is not interested in knowing things about Christ. He’s not speaking about learning doctrine or getting his theology right. He is speaking about a lived experience of union with Christ’s Spirit. I suspect that what Paul was referring to was something like what the 17th-century monk, Brother Lawrence wrote about in his book The Practice of the Presence of God: living in a sense of deep communion with Christ in the mundane details of life and gaining a deeper understanding of the nature, wisdom, and life of Christ in an experiential, not just intellectual, way. The word Paul uses for ‘knowing’ (ginōskō) is an intimate word that can refer to a sexual encounter.¹ This is the kind of knowing that brings union, shared life, and transformation to become like our divine Lover.

To Know the Power of Christ’s Resurrection

Linked with knowing Christ, Paul also longed to know the power of Christ’s resurrection. I doubt that he was only referring to the life awaiting him after death. When Paul taught about life, it was always something that was available now, in this world. He didn’t just want to be connected with Christ, he wanted to be empowered and enlivened by the life of Christ that fills the universe and that is always breaking out in places and times of struggle, turmoil, and death. What Paul had spent his life seeking and sharing, was a deep and empowering connection with Christ that sustained an extraordinary sense of aliveness, wakefulness, meaning, connection, and purpose, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Remember, he was writing from prison, unsure about whether he would survive or be executed.