The Kenosis of God
In the incarnation, God, like a good mother or father, is more concerned that his children are steered in the right direction than that he himself be explicitly recognized and acknowledged for who he is and thanked for it. God, like any parent, takes a huge risk in having children. To have children is to leave yourself painfully vulnerable. It’s also to be called upon for an understanding, a patience, and a self-dethroning that, literally, can empty you of self. That’s as true of God as of any mother or father.
To “self-empty” in the way Jesus is described as doing means being present without demanding that your presence be recognized and its importance acknowledged; it means giving without demanding that your generosity be reciprocated; it means being invitational rather than threatening, healthily solicitous rather than nagging or coercive; it means being vulnerable and helpless, unable to protect yourself against the pain of being taken for granted or rejected; it means living in a great patience that doesn’t demand intervention, divine or human, when things don’t unfold according to your will; it means letting God be God and others be themselves without either having to submit to your wishes or your timetable.
Not an easy thing at all, that’s why we’ve sung Jesus’ praises for two thousand years for doing it, but that’s the invitation.
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