He Emptied Himself

(Note: I realize this is a little bit early for a Triduum reflection but at Conception we go into a retreat starting Holy Thursday, so I won’t have time to post this other than now.  Please pray for me throughout the Triduum, and know that I will be praying for you.)

“Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.  Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

-Philippians 2: 5-8

He emptied himself.  Just sit with those words for a little bit.  He emptied himself.

Jesus Christ, who was and is God, “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1: 14).  He “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.”  He emptied himself.  He spent the first thirty hears of His life in quiet, humble obedience to human parents.  He emptied himself.  In His last three years, He traveled throughout His region proclaiming the Kingdom of God and working miracles among the people.  “The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” (Luke 7:22).  He emptied himself.  He fell to His knees and washed the feet of His Apostles, serving and loving them until the end.  He emptied Himself.  He knelt down in a garden and sweat blood at the trial ahead, all the while praying for the Apostles – “I am praying for them…whom thou has given me” (John 17: 9) – and you and I – “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word” (John 17:20).  He emptied Himself.  And finally, He walked the road of Calvary and died the infamous death of the Cross, loving even those who killed Him to the end.  “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23: 34).  He emptied Himself.

For me, Jesus’ life is entirely summed up in these words of St. Paul.  In every single thing He did, down to even the tiniest details of His life, He emptied Himself.  That’s what I want to focus on in this Holy Week reflection: Jesus’ emptying out of Himself for love of His Father and His people – you and I and the entire world.

First, Jesus emptied Himself out to the Father.  There’s a Latin expression my spiritual director, Father Xavier, likes to use when speaking of what our disposition should be during our monthly days of retreat.  He tells us to be “vacare Deo” – to be empty for God.  This is exactly what Jesus lived in his relationship to His Father.  In the Gospel of John, Chapter 5, verse 30, Jesus says, “I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of Him who sent me.”  Here Jesus is telling us that everything He does, He does because it is the will of the Father.  He is obedient in all things, never seeking His own will. In total submission, abandoning His own will in all the preaching He did and miracles He worked, Jesus emptied Himself before the Father.

This emptiness is fully realized in the Agony of the Garden.  “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke 22:42).  Here Jesus pours Himself out in prayer, begging that His trial be removed.  But He concludes by pouring out His life to His Father, obedient even unto the death to which He knows He is about to walk.  He empties Himself before His Father in His prayer during the deciding moment of His life, where He chooses His Father’s will over everything else.  He goes on to the Cross, where He places His entire life in His Father’s hands.  “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” Jesus says in Luke 23:46.  This obedience to the point of death is truly incredible, and the example we must follow, emptying ourselves of our own will in submission to our Heavenly Father’s.

Now let’s take a deeper look at Jesus emptying Himself for us.  John 13:1 reads, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end”, and boy did He prove it.  Next time you get a chance, just take a look at a Crucifix.  Don’t just pass it by, really look at it, ponder it, and pray with it for a little bit.  There you will see Divine Love personified, crucified for you.  Jesus did not only give up His life because it was His Father’s will – He gave up His life out of love for you and me.  Throughout all of that torturous suffering He went through, Jesus was thinking of you, me, the entire human race.  “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11).  He emptied Himself out of love for His sheep, to offer all of us a chance at salvation.

And not only did Jesus die for us, He died for us while we were still sinners, “enemies of the cross of Christ”, as St. Paul says in Philippians 3:18.  In fact, the people He came to save rejected Him and put Him to death – and He still begged His Father to forgive them.  And how often does He do the same thing for us, who sin against Him and His love time and time again!  Talk about emptying Himself.  There is no greater example because there is no greater love.  Let us remember that total, self-emptying love as we celebrate our Lord’s Passion.  Together, let’s learn from that love that goes beyond all human understanding.  Let us pray for the grace to imitate that love in our daily lives.

Let us “have among [ourselves] the same attitude that is also [ours] in Christ Jesus.”  Let us abandon ourselves to our Father’s will in prayer and action.  Let us extend Christ’s crucified love to all of those we encounter in our daily lives.  Let us empty ourselves, as Jesus did before us.

O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

In His love,

Hayden