In a few days, we will gather back here to start the season of Lent with a celebration of the Ash Wednesday liturgy. The season of Lent is a season of repentance and self-denial, and frequently in Lent people give something up like chocolate or television or the internet as an act of self-denial. Others use this season as an opportunity to deal with and hopefully move beyond some sin that they still struggle within their lives, and that’s completely appropriate for Lent too. The basic conception of Lent is that we’re “giving up,” whether that’s giving up something good as an act of spiritual discipline rather or giving up something sinful. Through either means Lent is trying to teach us what it means to empty ourselves, to deny ourselves, and to take up our cross and follow Jesus. 

We can see this if we take a closer look at our reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The reading starts mid-thought for Paul, which is a bit unfortunate. Back at the beginning of chapter three, Paul is explaining that if someone wanted to put confidence in the flesh, by which he means, have confidence that his Judaism would save him, then Paul would have more reason for confidence than anyone. He was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews (which means he had no Gentile lineage); as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” What’s important to note here is that none of these are bad things. There’s nothing wrong with what Paul lists here. Even being a persecutor of the church is reasonably defensible given what he believed about the consequences this new Jewish sect centered around Jesus might have for the people of God as a whole. 

And yet after making this list of reasons why he could have confidence in the flesh, Paul says, and here is where our reading starts: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of the Messiah. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus, the Messiah, my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish (or dung), in order that I may gain the Messiah and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through the faithfulness of the Messiah, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:7–11).

Paul’s argument here is instructive for us. He says that there were good things in his life that he is willing to let go of for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus, the Messiah, his Lord. Actually, he says even more than this. He says that he counts all things as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus. So what does Paul mean? Is he saying that nothing for him has any value any more except knowing Jesus Christ? I don’t think so. One of the mistakes people often make when reading Scripture is not being able to recognize that someone is speaking hyperbolically. What Paul is saying is that part of being a follower of Jesus Christ is being willing to give up the good things we have in our life for the sake of following Jesus. 

Here Paul has in mind specifically soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. But this is only a specific instance of what Paul had already told the Philippians earlier. He told them back in chapter 2 to imitate Jesus the Messiah, who “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6–8). The word for “emptied” here is the word κενόω, and theologians speak of Christ’s k