Emptying out for greatness

Today's gospel (Luke 22: 24-30) is another example of how later episodes in the life of Jesus provide a commentary on earlier ones. The scene is the Last Supper. The disciples argue about who should be considered the greatest. And Jesus offers two lessons; first he points out that the greatest among them will be their servant, as He has made himself their servant; and second, He promises them that they will be exalted in the world to come as the judges of Israel.

Let us deal with the second of these. The future that Jesus promises the disciples is not our own. Theirs was a particular vocation related to their exalted calling as his principal witnesses; the members of the College of Bishops today are simply the heirs of this august group. What then is our own future, if we are faithful to Him? St Paul tells the Corinthians that eye has not seen nor ear heard what things God has prepared for those who love Him. Yet eternal life is not ultimately about conditions but about persons. Our future, if we are faithful unto the end, is to breathe forth our souls in peace with the God who has loved us from eternity. Hearts can be filled according to the measure that God has called them to. May we all be thus filled.

What then of the first lesson? In answer to the disciples' shallow one-upmanship, Jesus offers instead His own example of what St Paul again calls 'self emptying'. Jesus did not come to stand on His dignity, even if St John the Baptist says he was not fit to undo Jesus' very sandal. Rather, He lowered Himself in the eyes of the world from the very first moment of His earthly life, conceived in the womb of an obscure daughter of the House of David and born surrounded by animals and their filth. Look around the stable and what do we see? The witnesses of Christian self emptying.

By tradition, we observe a donkey - the little donkey of the carol - the diminutive cousin of the nobler horse, known especially for its dogged, plodding willingness as a beast of burden. There is no glory here; only the example of a willingness to submit to the crosses that accompany our obscure lives. Yet it is not the lion or the horse who accompany Jesus into Jerusalem but the donkey ... with shouts about his ears and palms beneath his feet.

Next to the donkey, again by tradition, comes the ox - symbol of the priestly cast and thereby often used as the emblem of St Luke whose gospel opens with the story of Zechariah. Yet what is the ox in the stable menagerie but a humble ruminant, chewing over and over again the extraordinary scenes in which it now figures? No glory here either; the power of the ox is not developed in a gym but comes from its grazing and rumination, as steady and as fixed as the eye of the contemplative who drinks in daily the mysteries of the Beloved.

But my favourite witness of Christian self-emptying in the stable is the straw of Jesus' crib. The straw - the spikey, bloodless, pele mele straw, incapable of providing comfort by a single strand alone but when bundled up and wrapped in cloth, a more than adequate mattress for the newly born Christ Child. How we can identify with the straw - with our distracted prayers, our resurgent needs and half-baked promises! Easily blown about, too cold, too weak - and yet here gathered together to be the comfort of our Saviour. 

It is as the failing eyesight of the poet John Milton saw: they also serve who only stand and wait.