Kenosis (2nd December 2012)

In me, you live

As is well known, the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. Then they got translated into many languages of the world, sometimes in many different versions within one language. Korean translation of the Bible has quite many different versions. In order to better understand God’s word, I often refer to various versions of Korean translation. Sometimes when I find a Korean translation doesn’t make much sense, I look up an English or a German translation.

However, I personally think that verse 5 of today’s scripture reading is best translated into Korean, which literally means, “Cherish this mind/attitude (of Jesus) in you”. The word “cherish” is defined as follows: “to put and keep something in one’s mind”, “to harbor resentment, sadness, joy, or thoughts in the mind deeply”. That is, “to cherish” is to take something in one’s mind and keep or cultivate it with care and attention.

What are you cherishing in your mind? What you cherish tends to determine your life. Apostle Paul advises us to cherish in our mind “the heart of Jesus”. A Christian’s life can be summarized by the phrase “the mind/heart of Jesus, in you”.

Do you happen to know the very famous line from a Korean drama “Lovers in Paris”? Its male main character puts his hand on his chest and confesses to the female protagonist, “In me, you live”. What an ardent confession! Also, a Korean poet sings about love and separation like this: “Even though my love has left, I’ve never let her go”. What do you think love is? When you are in love, you cannot help but think about your loved one at all times. This is the natural emotion of love. Now, think about yourself whether you cherish the mind of Jesus in you at all times. If not, it may be the case that your love for Him is something only habitual or even insincere.

The beginning of love usually does not depend on one’s will or determination. Nobody gets determined to love a person before he/she starts to love the person. In this sense, “love” is expressed with the verb “fall” as in “fall in love” in English. That is, the emotion of love is not something that you gain at will, but something that embraces you without you noticing it. That’s why love is often relabeled as destiny. Love of destiny, encounters of destiny, all these expressions come from that nature of love.

However, if we only stick to the “falling in” kind of love, we cannot help getting disappointed, as the feeling of this sort of love does not last long. It’s rather volatile, and prevents us from looking into another kind of love that lies underneath: the “doing” of love. We should have the “doing” kind of love, meaning that we should exert our will and determination to love someone and put a lot of effort to love him/her more.

Even if it is a long tedious process to love with continuous will, it can help us to experience a new phase of love, that is, the love of “autonomously done”. At first, the feeling of love gets fired inside you and embraces you. Then, the love of “doing at will” makes you continue to love. Lastly, you will come to love without any effort, which is a combination of falling in love and doing love.

The same applies when we love Jesus Christ. When we first met Jesus, our heart was filled with great joy. We were looking forward to every Sunday service, expecting His words would touch our heart deeply. We were truly happy whenever we sang praises, or prayed. Surprisingly, however, we now often find our passionate hearts have disappeared and see ourselves go to church as a mere formality. I tell you that now it’s the time we need the “doing” and “putting effort” kind of love for God.

Open mind

Given that faith refers to cherishing the mind of Jesus in us, how can we do so? Philippians 2:1-4 give the answer. Especially take a look at verses 3 and 4.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

These verses tell us that we should desert the attitude of teaching others, but take the mind of learning from others with humility. How to cherish Jesus’ mind depends on our relationship with our neighbors, the Bible says.

This, in fact, isn’t easy. Even though an old saying says that we learn even from children, we like to teach, rather than learn from others. But it’s hard to sense the scent of Jesus from those who always have the attitude to despise others and feel obliged to teach them. Brothers and sisters, the Bible says, our Lord resides in the mind of those who consider others better than themselves. Thus, we are and should be trained to obey that word of God in our church community, a community of service.

Next, those who want to cherish the mind of Jesus should look for others as well as themselves. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once remarked, “A Christian is a being for others”. I agree with him 98%, but I think something is missing in his remark. First, the “for” part. I think the word “for” contains a sense of moral and mental superiority. In fact, we should not be/work “for” others; once we do so, we get easily disappointed by them when their responses are not something we expect. When we do something “for” some others, their disappointing reactions or bland gratitude can lead us exhausted and depressed. Therefore, I believe the “for” part should be replaced by “with”: we are a being with others!

Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.

This one verse is actually the beginning and the end of the Christian dogmatics. Understanding this verse becomes “Evangelium” or “Good news” for all. We have no other good news! Jesus put himself down like that, in order to be “with” us. Even when we are in the place of helping and giving love to others, we can’t do any good if they refuse. Unless they open their heart and cooperate with us, none of our efforts of loving can bear fruits. Thus, we, Christians should try to live “together with” others. Our Lord of Emmanuel is also “God-is-with-us”, not “God-is-for-us”.

I also disagree with the “others” part of Bonhoeffer’s remark. Others refer to people who exist outside of me. However, no one in the world is irrelevant from me. That’s why we frequently use the word “neighbors” instead of “others”, as we Christians are the ones who “live together with neighbors” by sharing their sadness, joy, and problems. When we get happy with our neighbors’ happiness, be sad with their tragedy and try to solve their problems together, then we can say that we cherish the mind of Jesus. Today, our hardened heart falls short of even resolving our own problems, our Lord still calls us to follow this road to share our mind with our neighbors.

Kenosis

The mind of Jesus that Paul is talking about can be summarized as “self-denial” or “self-transcendence”.

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

This utter self-denial is called “kenosis” in Greek, meaning “emptying oneself”. Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians: Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall. It didn’t matter to Paul whether to eat meat. However, if it did bother to someone whose faith was not strong enough, Paul was eager not to eat meat ever again. To restrict one’s freedom to build up God’s brothers and sisters, this is “kenosis” that is required from Christians.

It’s meaningful that Jesus was born in a manger. A manger indicates the lowest place on earth. Jesus Christ came to the lowest manger for us, who are living in this secularized world, forgetting that we were originally created in the images of God. He came to us to remind us how happy God had been when He first had made us, and to raise our eyes to God once again.

Those who know that God created them are those who acknowledge that God created all other people as well. Thus, they do not treat others recklessly. It’s not God’s will to look down upon the weak, because Jesus came to the world to become one with them, those people who are weak and feeble like ash. Jesus ate, drank, and spent time with sinners, by hiding his true nature. And finally he got nailed down on a cross.

Depth and height

However, the cross does not mean the end of everything. But rather, it’s the beginning of all. Brothers and sisters, where the road of the earth ends, the road of heaven begins. In verses 9-11 of today’s reading:

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The end of kenosis is not a tragedy but the beginning of resurrection. The lower you make yourself, the more value God gives to our kenosis. The depth becomes the height when it’s got upside down. When we lower ourselves to serve someone, God will heighten us in the end. To the eyes of those who were living in the same era as Jesus, our Lord who was carrying his cross

on the hill of Golgotha might have looked trivial like ash. However, he looked the most precious one in the eyes of God.

I like stories of people who put much endeavor to make their dream come true. Those stories provide positive stimuli for me. I like the Korean actor Myung-min Kim, because he always shows that he does his best in every role he takes. He even lost 20 kg purposely in order to act as a patient of Lou Gehrig’s disease. I sometimes get ashamed of myself, watching his acting. He reminds of me that I don’t put as much effort as him, in order to become more like Jesus and become His hands and feet in helping my neighbors.

During this Advent of waiting for the Lord to come, I truly hope that He will come deep inside your heart. In order for that to happen, we should always open our heart to learn from someone, and happily take care of our neighbors. I’d like to conclude my sermon by reading a poem written in 1750 by Pastor John Wesley:

Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.Amen.