The life of Jesus is a self-emptying (Philippians 2:7-8) in which he, the Word of God, by whom the universe is spoken into being finally emerges in creation as a mortal human. He participates in the creation as an individual human, sharing every aspect of our natural life. He even makes the point of entering this existence at a common and ordinary place, being laid as a newborn in a feed trough for animals (Luke 2:7).
While here Jesus encounters and identifies with the most common, ordinary, and indeed broken and suffering among us. He intentionally relates to “tax collectors and prostitutes,” “sinners,” the marginalized, and the excluded. Eventually, he is arrested, tortured, and executed by the Empire for blasphemy and sedition.
This self-emptying is the Way of Jesus. It is therefore also the Way of his disciples and the gospel community he calls. To follow him is to follow him on this specific Way. There is here no sense in which “he does it so we don’t have to.” That would make us spectators, not disciples. Discipleship means he leads us and we follow in his footsteps. We go where he goes. We do what he does.
We see that his Way is first a movement in which we let go of that which is self-important, self-righteous, self-preserving, and self-gratifying in us. Jesus let go even of his “equality with God”! We let go of our delusions of equality with God, in which we identify God with our own ego. In doing so we choose to follow Jesus in encountering life at its most basic, common, immediate, physical, sensory, and particular. We go to the broken places and the broken people and share in the brokenness. We self-empty, which is to say let go of our fantasies of importance, power, wealth, popularity, and independence. Following Jesus means following him “down;” it is to lose, fail, surrender, renounce, and divest.
But the Lord also Jesus speaks of his mission in terms of “being lifted up” (John 3:14, 8:28, 12:32, Acts 1:9). This culminates of course in his being lifted up on the cross, and its continuation in his being lifted up in his resurrection, and finally in his ascension.
Thus the movement of Jesus’ mortal life is characterized by a kind of reversal. In his self-emptying he also commences an uprising, a movement from low to high, from earth to heaven. It is an opening to the most inclusive, comprehensive, whole, and wide vision of reality. He brings people from brokenness and death to healing and life (Matthew 11:4-5). “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 2:9-11).
It is only by following this Way of relinquishment that we become light, light enough to participate with Jesus in the second movement, which is the uprising, the resurrection, our filling and shining with the light — and the expansive lightness — of God.
It is like a hot-air balloon. It yearns to ascend. It is designed and equipped to rise But it cannot until it loses enough of the weight that is keeping it on the ground. The riders have to off-load the bags of sand that are holding it in gravity’s grip. Only then can the balloon’s true nature and purpose be realized. Only then can it ascend.
In order to ascend into our true nature we also have to let go of what is holding us down. These are the thoughts, stories, ideas, habits, loyalties, and practices based on our egocentric way of understanding ourselves. The more of that we relinquish the more we become lighter and begin to emerge into our true selves in Jesus Christ.
And I want to emphasize that this relinquishment is not limited to changes in the way we think; it has to be expressed in action, as it is for Jesus. In other words we experience letting go in acts of humility, service, compassion, and empathy.
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