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Kenosis

At the beginning of each year we Wesleyans (and a few others who have stolen the discipline from us as John Wesley stole it from Richard Alleyn and others), share in a so-called "Covenant Service", rededication ourselves to God and "wholehearted discipleship" as this year's Methodist Church in Ireland theme puts it. It cumulates in the wonderfully poetic, but eye-poppingly demanding "Covenant Prayer". If you don't know it go look it up and ask yourself whether you would really want God to answer parts of that prayer?
As we enter into Lent I've been reflecting on that and some recent experiences, particularly where the Spirit leads Jesus from the exalted affirmation of baptism, into the empty wastes of the wilderness.

Why pray such a foolish thing?
Let me be full – yes please
Employed, exalted, energised!
But let me be empty,
Drained, dried-up, done,
Fit only for appropriate disposal,
Discarded, disregarded?

Yet, before that first creative word
There was only formless emptiness.
You emptied yourself Into human form
with no poetic Wesleyan limitation.
The first sign of who you were
Was only made possible
Because of empty water jars.

And that great, hope-giving dawn
Occurred in an empty borrowed tomb,
the location quickly forgotten,
(Until it could make money)
Because there was nothing to see there.
So be it, glorious and blessed One,
you are mine and I am yours,

Even in the emptiness.

Selah

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