He Emptied Himself
Sermon for Ash Wednesday, year B
Bible reading: Philippians 2:5-11
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I’m not a believer
, said the man. I still don’t know if I believe. But what happened to me makes you think. When the fires came I knew I had to get out. But I also knew my car was empty. I hopped in and thankfully it started. I raced to the local service station, but it was already out of action, so I just drove, and drove, and kept driving for my life, until I was safe. I drove on empty. It makes you think.
Ash Wednesday calls us to drive on empty. It calls us to come with the man who emptied himself,
and journey with him to the cross and beyond, on empty. It’s the only way to travel with Jesus. Jesus came to us on empty, and he calls us to come with him on empty.
Philippians 2 is an amazing hymn, singing the story of Jesus Christ, being in the form of God
in heaven, then being in the form of a servant
on earth, then being exalted to the highest place, given the highest name, with everyone confessing:
Jesus Christ is Lord.
There’s a world of difference between being in the form of God and being in the form of a slave or servant. Like going from riches to rags. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
And the word to describe this in our text is: he emptied himself.
This does not mean he stopped being God. Jesus did not stop being God when he became human. Jesus took the form of a servant without losing the form of God. He emptied himself of the display of his deity for personal gain. We see this at his birth, where he is laid in a crib in a cave, rather than in the comfort of a castle. We see it in his life, where he doesn’t have two coins to rub together, not even a place to lay his head. We see this especially in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he could have called on the heavenly hosts to rescue him, but he chose not to.
Even Isaiah could see it coming when he said: he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
He gave up everything, even his life, for the sake of others, for us and for our sins, because he loved us so much, because he wanted to save us so much.
He emptied himself.
These are amazing words. They say he put us before himself. He loved us more than himself. He was prepared to let go everything he had, in order to save us who have nothing. He refused to use any of his divine powers for his own advantage, to prove who he was, to prove his critics wrong, to force people to follow him or obey him. He was so humble and he looked so ordinary that some thought he was in league with the devil, his own disciples were insulted by the way he took on the slaves job and washed their feet, and his own family thought he was losing his marbles. Since he was the true God you’d think that he’d demand that people serve him, and bow and scrape before him, but not so, for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
He emptied himself,
in loving, in serving, in giving, in dying – and all for you, and for all people, to seek and save all the lost
, to bring all the lost sheep home, to call us all to follow him on a journey that begins today, and never ends.
In Lent the emptied One, calls you to empty yourself and come with him.
You desire truth in the inward being,
prays the Psalmist knowing that we cannot follow God when our hearts are filled with self-love, self-absorption, self-sufficiency, self-assertion. Create in me a clean heart, O God,
prays the Psalmist, knowing we cannot follow God, when our hearts are polluted with all the attractions of this passing life which distract us from hearing and following the call of God.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart,
drained empty of all that is focused on me, and my way, and my will, and my desire to do it myself, and to make an impression, and even to save the world.
Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me,
is the call Jesus issues at the beginning of Lent. Don’t just deny the superficial things commonly associated with Lent. Deny yourself.
- Empty yourself, of all that gets in the way of following Jesus.
- Empty yourself, of all that gets in the way of living like Jesus.
- Empty yourself, of all that gets in the way of giving your life in the service of others.
- Empty yourself, of all that gets in the way of Jesus filling you with all the riches he emptied on the cross to give you.
He emptied himself.
Jesus emptied himself in his life and death, so that you and the whole world would be saved and enter in the fullness of life.
How sad if Jesus died in vain. So Paul says to us all in tonight’s Epistle: We urge you not to accept the grace of God in vain.
In vain. That’s the word for empty. Paul appeals to us not to waste the grace of God, not to treat is a worthless. If Christ emptied himself and went to the cross for us, let us be filled with this grace, and saved by it, and follow Jesus by grace all our days. Paul’s call to us is to be emptied of all that is worthless and leads us astray from God and his ways, and be filled with the grace of God which alone can save us.
So this Lent: empty yourself of all that is ruining your life with God and leading you astray from him, and invite God to fill this emptiness with his presence – his love, his forgiveness, His Holy Spirit, his abundant life. Amen.
Questions for reflection:
No true change comes without sacrifice.
—John Arnold.