Kenosis and Triumphalism

 Notes and Confessions Lent 2022

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father. [Philippians 2: 1-11]

This famous scripture . . . I worry more know the second section better than the first section. 

That "at the name of Jesus" business, it's most often brought out in a triumphalist shout. It often has a bit of prideful boast to it, a declaration of "our God wins and yours doesn't!" 

This attitude completely misses the previous section. The humility of God in full display: the indifference to being equal with God, the understanding that ultimate power was not to be grasped at, exploited. Christ had it all and emptied himself, poured it all out, all the power and glory and authority. This is what came first, before any knee should bend. 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus . . .

But we like the glory. It's shiny and pretty. We like winners, and having every knee bend to our winner of a God is where we look first. 

It's so like us, who often see Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as optional, but are ready to appear on Easter Sunday. It's not that we need to feel bad before the celebration, it's that we need to know the cost to the one we worship, the one who still comes to us humbly, quietly, without demands. 

Kenosis, this self-emptying, self-pouring-out, is not easy. As much as we might meditate on it, think we practice it in some way, we will never really be empty. We haven't the self-awareness to do it. We're too afraid to trust that an empty vessel won't be refilled. 

We don't know how full we are.