That Every Knee Should Bend
Every so often, whether it’s in the Prophets, or the Gospels, or here in the Epistles, we get a time-out from everything else the Bible is about – we get a little break from the laws and the lamentations – even the calls to justice, peace, and mercy. And we get passages like Paul’s writing here in Philippians 2. Just simple statements of praise.
Now, he does begin this with a short call for brotherhood among the faithful – that the church should be of the same mind, have the same love, do nothing of selfishness or conceit.
But the bulk of this part of the epistle is one of simple praise to God – praise to Jesus – praise to the one who humbled himself and became obedient, even to the point of death on the cross.
Paul writes this in an exhortation to the church, that no matter what else they’re dealing with; no matter what other troubles they have; their primary purpose for being together is to give God praise.
To pray to God in wonder and thanksgiving.
To bend the knee in worship together.
And that’s the part of this letter that I want to spend just a few minutes talking about this morning.
“That every knee should bend.”
When Paul says this, he’s saying that the awesome power of God should be so apparent, so obvious, so unavoidable, that at the very name of Jesus, people will want to give their worship.
That the love of God is so great, so overwhelming, so life-giving, that Jesus, so highly exalted by God, name above all names, will be the object of our most fervent praise, our greatest desire… that at his name, people all over the world will bend their knee, to submit to his kingdom of peace, love, and righteousness.
That is a statement of praise.
It’s a statement of hope.
It’s what Paul believes that God deserves, and what he expects to see.
So… what happens to us today, when we say the name of Jesus?
For people who were raised in faith, who carry faith, that name does stir something in the heart – it does make something well up within us. It does inspire us, strengthen us, and challenge us.
We know Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. That name means something to us. It makes us pray, whether on our knees, or standing or sitting or wherever we are.
But what of people who don’t share faith? Who don’t feel that same inspiration that we do?
Historically, the Church has not always treated people of other faiths or no faith kindly… whether we want to look at the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the religious wars of the Middle Ages, the Conquistadors, the forced conversions of First Nations tribes… the list goes on… for much of Christendom’s history, we’ve looked at passages like Philippians 2:10, read, “every knee shall bow,” and took that as an imperative that we should try to make that happen.
Now… one of my favorite hobbies is reading. I love to read. I’m especially a fan of historical fiction, but I’ve been a reader my whole life – from being a little kid staying up until 4am with my Dungeons & Dragons books, up to now… it relaxes me when I’m stressed, it entertains me when I’m bored, reading just makes me happy.
There’s only a few times in my life that I can recall not liking reading. Can you guess when those were?
High school and college English classes where I was being forced to read. Forced to read books that, for the most part (with a few exceptions) were pretty good, and I’d have been happy to read on my own or on a friendly recommendation.
But the moment I was assigned something to read. Forced to read something. I immediately started out not liking it.
It’s like that with people, isn’t it?
Something they may actually like if they tried it on their own, they dig their heels in if you try to force it on them.
Faith can’t be forced.
Faith is organic. It has to be allowed to grow within us. We can nurture it. We can support each other in our faith. But we can’t dig our fingers in the dirt and pull and seeds to make them into plants. That’s not how life works, that’s not how God works.
When Paul says that “every knee shall bend,” that’s not a commandment to us to make something happen. It’s a description of what he envisions will happen when the truth of God is known.
So I’ll ask you…
What does the name of Jesus make you feel?
Do you feel love well up within you?
Do you feel safety and security in that name?
Do you feel his promise of eternal grace and comfort?
If you do – then doesn’t that make you want to praise him? Doesn’t that make you want to say a prayer, just a simple praise of “Thank you, Jesus!”?
“Thank you, Jesus!”
And if you hear that name of Jesus… and you don’t feel that… if you hear the name of Jesus and it just makes you want to roll your eyes, thinking, “no thanks, I’ve seen what the Church is selling, and I don’t want it,” - that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. That doesn’t mean that you’re not loved. People sometimes have bad experiences with churches. That happens. Sometimes people have had religion shoved down their throat and don’t like it. That happens a lot. Sometimes people hear “Jesus” and immediately associate that name with certain prejudices, certain politics, certain ideologies, and they think, “that’s not for me.”
There are any number of reasons why people don’t want to bend the knee and worship at the name of Jesus…
Very few of those reasons, by the way, have anything to do with the actual Jesus…
Sometimes the church acts in ways that aren’t so inviting. Or Jesus’s followers get a little over-zealous and it turns people off. Or people do bad things in the name of Jesus, using his name in vain. All these things happen.
People are faulty. Jesus’s followers can be faulty. We can sometimes push and pull when we should give space; sometimes we give too much space and don’t know how or when to give a friendly nudge. But even if we’re not perfect – Jesus still is.
So when Paul says that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow… We can’t make other peoples’ knees bow for them. We can’t compel worship. We can’t force faith.
That comes from within. That comes from giving people space to let their own faith flourish. That comes from letting people experience things like love, like kindness, like forgiveness, like goodness… and letting them know that those good things that the world is still full of… those things all have a name. That name is Jesus.
To him be all glory, praise, and honor. Amen.
Please pray with me.
Holy and righteous Lord, you put the name of Jesus on our lips. You make his light to shine within us. You put the yearning in each of us to pray in his name. Lord, we pray that through us people may see an invitation to know you better. That we do not brandish your name as a cudgel, or use it to beat people down, but that we hold it aloft as a beacon for love, for peace, for hope, and for joy. Lord, we pray in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Every so often, whether it’s in the Prophets, or the Gospels, or here in the Epistles, we get a time-out from everything else the Bible is about – we get a little break from the laws and the lamentations – even the calls to justice, peace, and mercy. And we get passages like Paul’s writing here in Philippians 2. Just simple statements of praise.
Now, he does begin this with a short call for brotherhood among the faithful – that the church should be of the same mind, have the same love, do nothing of selfishness or conceit.
But the bulk of this part of the epistle is one of simple praise to God – praise to Jesus – praise to the one who humbled himself and became obedient, even to the point of death on the cross.
Paul writes this in an exhortation to the church, that no matter what else they’re dealing with; no matter what other troubles they have; their primary purpose for being together is to give God praise.
To pray to God in wonder and thanksgiving.
To bend the knee in worship together.
And that’s the part of this letter that I want to spend just a few minutes talking about this morning.
“That every knee should bend.”
When Paul says this, he’s saying that the awesome power of God should be so apparent, so obvious, so unavoidable, that at the very name of Jesus, people will want to give their worship.
That the love of God is so great, so overwhelming, so life-giving, that Jesus, so highly exalted by God, name above all names, will be the object of our most fervent praise, our greatest desire… that at his name, people all over the world will bend their knee, to submit to his kingdom of peace, love, and righteousness.
That is a statement of praise.
It’s a statement of hope.
It’s what Paul believes that God deserves, and what he expects to see.
So… what happens to us today, when we say the name of Jesus?
For people who were raised in faith, who carry faith, that name does stir something in the heart – it does make something well up within us. It does inspire us, strengthen us, and challenge us.
We know Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. That name means something to us. It makes us pray, whether on our knees, or standing or sitting or wherever we are.
But what of people who don’t share faith? Who don’t feel that same inspiration that we do?
Historically, the Church has not always treated people of other faiths or no faith kindly… whether we want to look at the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the religious wars of the Middle Ages, the Conquistadors, the forced conversions of First Nations tribes… the list goes on… for much of Christendom’s history, we’ve looked at passages like Philippians 2:10, read, “every knee shall bow,” and took that as an imperative that we should try to make that happen.
Now… one of my favorite hobbies is reading. I love to read. I’m especially a fan of historical fiction, but I’ve been a reader my whole life – from being a little kid staying up until 4am with my Dungeons & Dragons books, up to now… it relaxes me when I’m stressed, it entertains me when I’m bored, reading just makes me happy.
There’s only a few times in my life that I can recall not liking reading. Can you guess when those were?
High school and college English classes where I was being forced to read. Forced to read books that, for the most part (with a few exceptions) were pretty good, and I’d have been happy to read on my own or on a friendly recommendation.
But the moment I was assigned something to read. Forced to read something. I immediately started out not liking it.
It’s like that with people, isn’t it?
Something they may actually like if they tried it on their own, they dig their heels in if you try to force it on them.
Faith can’t be forced.
Faith is organic. It has to be allowed to grow within us. We can nurture it. We can support each other in our faith. But we can’t dig our fingers in the dirt and pull and seeds to make them into plants. That’s not how life works, that’s not how God works.
When Paul says that “every knee shall bend,” that’s not a commandment to us to make something happen. It’s a description of what he envisions will happen when the truth of God is known.
So I’ll ask you…
What does the name of Jesus make you feel?
Do you feel love well up within you?
Do you feel safety and security in that name?
Do you feel his promise of eternal grace and comfort?
If you do – then doesn’t that make you want to praise him? Doesn’t that make you want to say a prayer, just a simple praise of “Thank you, Jesus!”?
“Thank you, Jesus!”
And if you hear that name of Jesus… and you don’t feel that… if you hear the name of Jesus and it just makes you want to roll your eyes, thinking, “no thanks, I’ve seen what the Church is selling, and I don’t want it,” - that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. That doesn’t mean that you’re not loved. People sometimes have bad experiences with churches. That happens. Sometimes people have had religion shoved down their throat and don’t like it. That happens a lot. Sometimes people hear “Jesus” and immediately associate that name with certain prejudices, certain politics, certain ideologies, and they think, “that’s not for me.”
There are any number of reasons why people don’t want to bend the knee and worship at the name of Jesus…
Very few of those reasons, by the way, have anything to do with the actual Jesus…
Sometimes the church acts in ways that aren’t so inviting. Or Jesus’s followers get a little over-zealous and it turns people off. Or people do bad things in the name of Jesus, using his name in vain. All these things happen.
People are faulty. Jesus’s followers can be faulty. We can sometimes push and pull when we should give space; sometimes we give too much space and don’t know how or when to give a friendly nudge. But even if we’re not perfect – Jesus still is.
So when Paul says that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow… We can’t make other peoples’ knees bow for them. We can’t compel worship. We can’t force faith.
That comes from within. That comes from giving people space to let their own faith flourish. That comes from letting people experience things like love, like kindness, like forgiveness, like goodness… and letting them know that those good things that the world is still full of… those things all have a name. That name is Jesus.
To him be all glory, praise, and honor. Amen.
Please pray with me.
Holy and righteous Lord, you put the name of Jesus on our lips. You make his light to shine within us. You put the yearning in each of us to pray in his name. Lord, we pray that through us people may see an invitation to know you better. That we do not brandish your name as a cudgel, or use it to beat people down, but that we hold it aloft as a beacon for love, for peace, for hope, and for joy. Lord, we pray in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen.