Emptying
Life in the fullest requires an emptying of the old.
Like all people: my life started with many expectations. Most of them wrong.
Expectations originating from myself, family, community, culture, and personal circumstances in human history.
Each of these expecations always had a flavor of finding fulfillment and seeking rightness. Finding a way that I should be in relation with the world and others. An expectation to behave as a child as one who fits in to the human order. Expectations of success and even temperment. Each of these outcomes from each expectation is rooted in the shared belief that by meeting those expectations, I would be fulfilled. My life would be full.
Ful-fill-ment. To fill up completely. Often as the succesful accomplishment of an achievement. Filling myself. Accomplishing things.
Well this has stuck with me!
In various forms of personality tests, I’m definitely the “Achiever” or something similar. My default mode is to accomplish and get a list of successes that I can look back on and say “I did it!” I love a TODO list and checking it off.
But as I get older and as I look at the life of Jesus, I see the exact opposite pattern.
Jesus did not seek accomplishment. His "great works" are generally small in scope compared to modern Silicon Valley 'lets change the world' standards.
Talking abojt water to a women at a well? Healing a few select despot individuals? Even his death -- as cosmically powerful as it was -- was less a national spectacle for all of Rome and more a rehionally blip of a disturbance.
I want to undertstand this Jesus. I am drawn to the historical figure and resurrected living spirit. How are these the same person? What is Jesus in his life and death trying to tell us about God? How do we apply it to our lives?
#1 - God Empties Even Himself
The Trinitarian pattern shows us that God Himself operates through kenosis—the Father empties all of Himself into the Son, and the Son empties all of Himself into the Spirit. This self-limitation is not weakness but the ultimate expression of divine love and power. Christ's incarnation demonstrates that power-under (submission and service) triumphs over power-over (domination and control).
Scripture
| Scripture | Text |
|---|---|
| Philippians 2:6-8 | "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!" |
| Romans 1:20 | "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made..." |
#2 - Patience Creates Spacious Places for Repentance
God's patience is not passive waiting but active creation of space. He creates wide open wilderness for our sin to be sent out (like the scapegoat), giving us room to wander, fail, and return. This spacious patience becomes the model for how we should treat others—not in judgment, but in creating space for grace and transformation.
Scripture
| Scripture | Text |
|---|---|
| Psalm 18:19 | "He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me." |
| Romans 2:4 | "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?" |
| Romans 2:15 | "They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them." |
| Leviticus 16:10 | "But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat." |
#3 - Time and Attention: Our Most Precious Offering
In an age of acceleration where "I'm so busy" has become a status symbol, kenosis calls us to offer what is most precious: our time and undivided attention. Just as Elijah offered water in the midst of drought (the most precious resource), we are called to offer slowness, presence, and space in a culture starving for genuine connection.
Scripture
| Scripture | Text |
|---|---|
| Galatians 1:10 | "Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ." |
| Galatians 2:10 | "All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along." |
What is the most precious thing you have to offer? In a world that worships speed, kenosis invites us to slowness, to space freely offered, to presence without agenda.