April 5, 2020 – Philippians 2:1-11
Philippians 2:1-11
The Emptiness of Love
Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion A – April 5, 2020
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love,
any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete:
be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. . .
Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
(Philippians 2:1-2, 4-7)
Some of the most sobering images on the internet these days
are photos of formerly robust cities now seemingly emptied of people.
London, Paris, Venice, New York and countless cities like them look like ghost towns.
Tourist attractions no longer attract.
Public squares are abandoned.
Streets no longer carry many cars nor sidewalks many pedestrians.
Winnipeg is no different.
Stores, restaurants, businesses of all kinds – churches of every stripe – all empty.
Rush hour is now slow hour – indeed all hours are slow hours.
The snow on the walk outside First Lutheran Church shows
very little evidence of any foot traffic.
Our once full worship space is now full of absence.
What was full is now empty.
Paul says much the same thing about Jesus in Philippians.
Jesus, he says, emptied himself.
That is, he left behind a very full life in the life of the Trinity, as a member of the godhead.
Jesus left behind a godly life and emptied himself of all its trappings.
Whatever godly life implies – omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence
(I’m not exactly sure here, but presumably it is pretty great) – Jesus left it all behind.
He emptied himself of it all.
And why?
In order to be with us.
In order to walk the same earth as us.
In order to experience what it is to be human.
In order to get inside our lives, to know what it is to breathe, and wonder,
and have limitations, and suffer injustice – and die.
In order to know us, just as we are.
All so that he could love us better – or, as Paul says, in order to serve us.
In order to serve, Jesus had to empty himself.
The emptying was a sign of the greatest love imaginable.
The emptying was a way of loving.
I have not been able to get out of my head something I read recently in an Instagram post.
It was something a friend of the musician Paul Williams had sent him.
As this person reflected on the images of empty cities this is what he or she wrote,
It looks like the end of the world. [But really] what you’re seeing is love in action. What you’re seeing in that negative space is how much we care for each other, for our grandparents, for our immuno-compromised brothers and sisters, for people we will never meet.
Much will be lost because of the threat of COVID-19 and
the social distancing needed to combat it: jobs, income, businesses, lives.
Yet all that emptiness signifies love.
The emptiness certainly signifies significant, unimaginable loss.
But it also signifies an unimaginable love.
It is an emptiness that clearly is affecting every single person on the planet.
It is an emptiness, though, that is binding us all together in love.
When I see the empty streets and stores of Winnipeg, I have to believe that it is love at work.
I have to believe that it is a great act of love for one another.
I have to believe that something good will come from this and that lives will be saved.
I have to believe that God is working in this – and that Jesus and his love are fully present in it.
Emptiness is a way of loving.
It is, as Paul reminds us, a very Christ-like way of loving.
As I mention in the children’s video message this week, there are many ways to love.
And this emptying is surely one of them.
Having the mind of Jesus – seeing things through the eyes of Jesus – can help
keep us focussed on how much of a service to our neighbours social distancing is.
It is hard. It is a lot of work. It is worrying and anxiety-inducing.
But we must remember that we are being of the greatest service to our neighbours.
We must remember that it is one exceedingly significant way that
we can love our neighbours right now.
Perhaps, just perhaps, this will bind us all more closely together.
So when you see the emptiness, I invite you to see love in action.
See hope for a day when this will come to an end.
See faith that God is working in this.
And remember: in Paul’s imagining, you cannot empty the universe of love.
Love, in Paul’s reckoning, abides.
Faith, hope, and love abide – always, everywhere – and the greatest of these is love.
When the mountains crumble and the seas dry up, when the stars fall and the earth quakes,
when everything crumbles and fades away – one thing will remain.
One thing will abide.
For one thing there is that shares in the quality of the eternal.
And that thing is love.
What will remain is all the love we’ve ever given, and all the love we’ve ever received.
So:
Be of good courage. Hold fast to that which is good. Render to no one evil for evil.
Strengthen the fainthearted. Support the weak. Help the afflicted. Honour all people.
Love and serve God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And together, let us all say a virtual “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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