Carmen Christi

We were created out of a servant love for a servant love

The songwriter has a very specific challenge. He needs to say whatever is on his mind in four minutes. He’s at a bit of a disadvantage. The filmmaker gets a couple of hours; the author, hundreds of pages.

So the songwriter’s job is distillation. To boil a thing down to its essence. To decide just one thing to say and to say it well.

New picture.

The Apostle Paul is a prisoner in Rome and he’s been writing a letter to the Philippian church. He doesn’t know what the future holds. He doesn’t know if the Romans will kill him. So, with the possibility of death staring him in the face, he writes about the most important things on his mind: his friends, finding joy in every circumstance, and Jesus. 

In this book he says things like, “I consider everything a loss compared to the greatness of knowing Christ.” or “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”

And then, as he’s approaching the core, the center, the summary of what he’s trying to say he quotes a song. It’s a hymn of the early church scholars call Carmen Christi or “Christ’s Song.”

Today, as we discuss Christ as a servant let’s read the words to this song together.

Philippians 2:5-11
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.