Phil 2:2 “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant”

We know from science that our entire physiology runs on electro-chemical energy. When this flow of energy is impeded our very life is in peril. All forms of energy involve a potential difference or “charge” held between polls that has a certain flow direction or “polarity” from a higher to lower state.

At the center of the Christian faith is the Kenosis of God, where he empties himself in love to bring us into intimate communion with himself. This primordial love energy that is the cause of our vast expanding universe is demonstrated in its most particular form in the incarnation. This is our point of invitation to join in the divine kenosis, to get into this great flow of energy. This means connecting our unique expression of self-emptying love (our vocation) with God’s universal self emptying love (the Pascal mystery). The energy flow is always from a higher to a lower state, and this is why humility is the electrolyte of love.

The opposite of this flow is self-centeredness, which is an attempt to reverse the polarity of God’s image in us. In so doing we impede or resist the divine-human flow of energy. We are in a sense resisting the incarnation. The result is a negative inflammatory response within us that will lead to division, illnesses, and disorder. We become dammed-up and unable to experience the full flow of kenotic energy the we were made for.

To let go and enter the Kenotic flow is to discover true happiness and joy. It can also be a path of vulnerability and suffering, but the type of suffering that is unitive, creative and flowing outward, not stuck, dammed up or bitter.

This kenotic energy is self-actualizing in the sense that we find our true self only when are able to release our grip on self, just as Christ “did not count equality with God as something to be grasped”. Saint John Paul 2 phased it this way: “We only discover our self in the gift of our self” (JP2).

How do we practice this Kenotic energy, this Christic-Yoga? Its simple:

Be a servant: “I came to serve, not to be served”.

Become aware and compassionate: “My food is to do the will of God”

Be in communion and community: “I do nothing on my own”

The Wedding Feast of Cana is the first sign or miracle of Jesus. The fact that it takes place at a wedding is significant. Marriage is the icon of God’s approach to man. As the prophet says “your builder wishes to marry you” (Isiah 62:5). And through Hosea the Lords says:
“I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord”(Hosea 2:19)

If Jesus came to reveal the Father’s love for us, and His great desire is to be fully united with us, then it is fitting and prophetic that His ministry begins at a wedding.

Wine is a symbol of joy, and the highest joy is the nuptial union because it points us to the union of Christ and His spouse-which is us.

Marriage is an icon of God’s love for His creation, and wine is a symbol of the intoxicating joy that such a covenant love provides.

Jesus initiates this New Covenant with us by turning the water of the old covenant used for ritual cleansing into the New Wine of the Holy Spirit so that we might enter into the joy of the Lord. That we might have intimacy with God.

The best wine is reserved for last, to point us to the wedding feast of God and man which is eternal life.

“It is no longer I but Christ that lives within me” Gal2:20

All to often we get trapped in our own narrative, our own fake news. We become indentured servants to the self imposed images and expectations of who we are supposed to be or what we think others expect of us.

The ego is a terrible task master, never satisfied, and always seeking control. It fabricates a narrative that runs constantly in the background, accusing, proposing, and spinning half-truths into fear. Focus on it, and we cut ourselves off from Christ who lives within us. The magnificent divinizing presence of Christ is alive in us but we can only access it through surrender and trust. We have to place Him on the throne of our lives if we are to experience interior freedom. His joy becomes our joy, and is completed in us when we let go.

“It is no longer I but Christ that lives in me” Gal2:20

The manna that God provided for the Israelites in the dessert is described as flakes like hoarfrost or dew upon the ground. It was not recognizable as bread, and they did not see it falling from heaven, it just appeared in the morning as naturally as the dew.

Here we have a mysterious interplay between nature and grace. The morning dew tastes like sweet bread, and the evening birds are real flesh. Strangely natural and supernatural.

The Eucharist presents a similar mystery. It is just a wafer of bread in a liturgical service, a shared meal, and yet through the eyes of faith it becomes Christ, our passover, and real spiritual food for the journey.

Does the Eucharistic (Thanksgiving) presence of Christ appear everywhere that love is shared? Does it fall as naturally as the morning dew, for all who are journeying within the pascal mystery of life?

It seems as if the spirit by its very nature is drawn into matter.  God descending into our humanity in Jesus, and then even further down to become bread to eat.  A divine mist condensing on the ground of our lives like  the morning dew.

Our own lives are also to become a kind of Eucharist, a bread for others, and a descent into nature.  As we are led  into this vulnerable land  we learn its language of trust and self emptying, and then manna appears all around us.

“All that is not given is lost” (unknown)

I can’t seem to find comfort among the comfortable. I fear my talent is sinking into the ground of complacency. Time is flowing past like a swift current. Today is the day to act. Every day is a new call to reach out in love. There is a haunting, a hounding, an agitation deep in my soul, a feeling that I am waiting for something while missing the invitation that is right under my nose.

Escaping from the simple duty of love is the single talent buried in the ground of fear. Taking the risk of self-emptying is the paradoxical comfort that I really seek, the true resting place for the restless heart.

---