Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names [. . .]
(Philippians 2:9)
Some of the people who lived in Jerusalem started to ask each other, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? But here he is, speaking in public, and they say nothing to him. Could our leaders possibly believe that he is the Messiah? But how could he be? For we know where this man comes from. When the Messiah comes, he will simply appear; no one will know where he comes from.”
While Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he called out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I come from. But I’m not here on my own. The one who sent me is true, and you don’t know him. But I know him because I come from him, and he sent me to you.” Then the leaders tried to arrest him; but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come. (John 7:25–30 NLT)
The world makes much of status. If you’ve done any travel recently, you know this. The airport lounges are full of travelers who pay for the privilege, and the boarding process has fifteen groups who pre-board with their status before the rest of the “normal” people do. Or maybe your mailbox, like mine, is full of credit cards that offer a certain status with perks at a certain hotel chain. Gone are the days of elite status reserved for the road warriors with millions of miles in the air or hundreds of nights spent in hotels. Status is now pay-to-play, and everyone can be special. And in a world where everyone is special, no one is special.
But our Savior, the God we worship, has a special status. Philippians 2:9 reminds us of that status, that place Jesus occupies. Jesus sits on the highest throne. He has the highest status. Even his name is higher than any other name. The space Jesus occupies is over all and above all because he himself is over all and above all. Jesus is part of a club that has but only one member – himself. Yet sometimes we forget that this elevation comes after his death on the cross. When he comes to earth, he has emptied himself of that status he held in heaven and he has taken on the form of a man.
It’s not surprising then that people in his day had a hard time figuring out the logistics of what exactly Jesus’s status was as he lived on the earth. Some of the confusion arose, we read in John 7, from the fact that people knew where Jesus was from – he was from Nazareth. Apparently, some traditions over the years had taught that no one would know where the Messiah came from, that he would just, as they say, “appear.” Jesus’s rebuttal to this is both enigmatic and simple. Yes, true, you know me, but you don’t know the one who sent me.
While the people were confused about Jesus’s status, Jesus was sure of who he was. Not only was he the Messiah, but he also was God incarnate. He knew who he was, and he knew that while his status had changed temporarily, elevation would come and he would sit on the throne in heaven with God, reining eternally with all the power, glory, and status that would come with the return to the throne.
I wonder, as we reflect on this Lenten season, what status are we chasing? For those of us who follow Jesus, our status is already secure: children of the Most High, sons and daughters of the one who sits on the throne, elevated over all. If we truly believed in our status, what would God do in us and through us this week?
Nathan Solak is the lead pastor at Ridgewood Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin.