The waters of kenosis

Isaiah 12:1-6

I just finished watching the film "Interview with the Vampire." As I write this post, I am listening to credits roll to the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil." If I am left with one feeling and idea from my viewing, its that of emptiness. The main character, Louis (Brad Pitt), is a vampire who regrets agreeing to become a vampire and wishes he had chosen death instead. The emptiness he feels and lives out is similar to the real experience of many in our world, those who have given pieces of their souls away to people who mistreated them, in behaviors that turned rotten, to false messages of culture that entice and promise satisfaction, meaning, and love; but end up leaving only that empty feeling of regret, mixed with hopelessness.

Then again, as with so many words in any language, emptiness can have an opposite, if related meaning. Rather than a lifeless emptiness that comes from giving our souls to things that attract, but were never meant to have our souls; this other emptiness comes from giving our souls and our SELVES to God. Sounds simple, doesn't it? This was a major breakthrough in my spiritual life. I worked and worked to be a "good Christian," until I discovered (through no feat of my own, but rather God's spiritual smack) that we don't work to please God; we surrender all of our efforts and striving to God's grace, so that any good we do is God working through us. This is called kenosis: self-emptying. We find God less in reaching out to him, and more in giving up and falling back into his waiting, loving arms.

Living in that state of kenosis is like swimming. We move, but everything seems slower, graceful, more flowing, more dance-like. For indeed, God is our dance partner, leading us around the dance floor of life. Salvation becomes very real in those waters. Rather than a heaven-or-hell afterlife as the primary focus of salvation, it becomes instead a transforming moment in life: more transformative even than birth or death. You might say it is being "born again," but maybe not. Kenosis' sweet surrender happens over and over again, every time we return to the Gospel of salvation that is provided for us and that we do not achieve. God draws the living water from his well of salvation and offers us a drink.

Drink deeply, friends. Let go and drink in...