AUDIO version of this post is available here.
By Lisa & Mark Kutolowski
Today we enter the most sacred seasons of the Christian Church – the liturgical journey that follows Jesus into his purification in the wilderness (Lent), to his death and resurrection (The Easter Triduum), and through his ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. While this journey ultimately leads to glory and new life, the beginning is a path of ever greater descent – from the wilderness to the cross to the underworld. Christ’s journey is a great act of kenosis, or self-emptying.
As Christians, we are called to walk this mysterious path of death and resurrection that Christ opened for us. To follow Christ, we are given reminders, ritual, and celebration to recommit to this daily path. This is the gift of the next three months – from March 2nd (Ash Wednesday) until June 6th (Pentecost).
The Christian liturgical calendar envisions time as a circle. The journey from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost is shown in the purple, red and gold of the upper-right quarter.
Our liturgical journey begins the way Jesus’ outward ministry began – in the wilderness. This is where we collectively enter into Christ’s kenotic path of self-emptying. During Lent, we are invited to discover what keeps us from dwelling in the infinite love of God. God is nearer to us than our own breath. We do not need to add anything into our lives to live in Divine Love, but there are attachments, addictions, patterns, habits of thought and behavior that cling to our souls. These are what obscure our perception of God’s infinite love. These are what must be stripped away for us to fully perceive the Kingdom of God at hand. This is the path of kenosis.
From the outside, kenosis looks like a path of suffering and limitation. We fast. We may abstain from both vices and the good things of life - giving up coffee or reading the news or eating between meals. We practice restraint and letting go. We give away possessions. We pursue the way of chastity. We refuse to give in to passionate emotions and to defend our agenda against others. To the ethos of our materialistic, consumer culture, this whole endeavor seems a bit crazy, and even anti-life. Why limit the good things in life? Why diminish ourselves?
The paradox of kenosis is that we voluntarily give up natural, good things only because we have come to recognize the far greater love that we are created to enjoy. When we have tasted the gift of God’s love, we become willing to let go of all else. We discover that the Kingdom of God is a ‘pearl of great price’ and we willingly sell all our possessions in order to obtain it (Matthew 13:45-46). We become vulnerable, and consent to God’s work of purifying our hearts. Allowing God to strip away our self-centered impulses becomes the necessary preparation to abide with our divine Beloved. At times, it may feel like death. Yet we participate in our own diminishment, because we have come to realize that we are so much more than our patterns, thoughts and conditioning. We are sons and daughters of God, called to live in God’s inexhaustible life and love. When we die to self, we give God good soil to plant the seeds of inner resurrection in our hearts. Without purification, there can be no lasting illumination and union. As Jesus taught, ‘unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.’ (John 12:24)
Last year during Lent, we wrote weekly about a kenotic path taught to us by the desert fathers and mothers - the Christian spiritual masters of 3rd to 5th century Egypt, Syria and Palestine. Their system of inner transformation centers on learning to observe the rise, persistence and fall of our thoughts. The desert elders outlined eight destructive ‘thoughts’ – gluttony, lust, greed, dejection, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride - and taught ways to gain spiritual freedom from their activity in our hearts. This year, we have recorded this 10-part series and invite you to engage or re-engage with this material either in written or audio form.
You can read the series here or listen to it here.
As we continue through the journey of Lent, we’ll post further reflections on the path of kenosis, and the classic Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. While our ultimate hope rests in Christ’s resurrection, the path of discipleship begins anew this day with the Lenten journey of kenosis. Even now, let us return to God with our whole hearts - knowing that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. (Joel 2:12-13)