{"id":294,"date":"2007-12-24T12:16:10","date_gmt":"2007-12-24T12:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2007\/12\/christ-before-3.html"},"modified":"2007-12-24T12:16:10","modified_gmt":"2007-12-24T12:16:10","slug":"christ-before-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/12\/christ-before-3.html","title":{"rendered":"Christ Before the manger (p5)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love Christmas eve services.&nbsp; Gathering together, reflecting upon the incarnation of our Lord as we hold our lit candles high.&nbsp; I truly have the best seat in the house as I look out over the congregation&#8230;it&#8217;s a beatiful moment.<\/p>\n<p>When the early church gathered there was a hymn they sang that and I&#8217;m grateful that we have it recorded in Phil. 2.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m struck this year by the first part of verse 7, &quot;made himself nothing.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Kenosis,&quot; that is, to empty or to pour.&nbsp; Christ poured himself out in the incarnation.&nbsp; Now we can spend our time on what he poured out (which can be a fun theological excercise) or we can recogize the implications.&nbsp; When something is poured out there is an opportunity for something else to be filled!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/2007\/12\/24\/pour_water.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"265\" alt=\"Pour_water\" src=\"https:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/2007\/12\/24\/pour_water.jpg\" width=\"250\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> Whatever Christ emptied himself of can fill us if we are willing and receptive vessels.&nbsp; Os Guiness helps us here when he wrote, &quot;we have too much to live with and not enough to live for.&quot;&nbsp; Are we too full to be filled?&nbsp; Just look at your trash can on Wednesday morning for the answer to that question&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps we need an emptying as well.&nbsp; Maybe this is why the scriptures teach us to live generously, so that our blessings don&#8217;t become stagnant in our lives we give them away so that Christ can fill us anew.&nbsp; We also follow in the ancient way of the Magi who were full of gold, incense and myrhh and yet, in the presence of Christ, they became empty so that they could be filled with Christ and worshipful.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the gospel isn&#8217;t it?&nbsp; That&#8217;s the mystery revealed, &quot;Christ in us, the hope of glory.&quot;&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love Christmas eve services.&nbsp; Gathering together, reflecting upon the incarnation of our Lord as we hold our lit candles high.&nbsp; I truly have the best seat in the house as I look out over the congregation&#8230;it&#8217;s a beatiful moment. When the early church gathered there was a hymn they sang that and I&#8217;m grateful&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Christ Before the manger (p5) - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/12\/christ-before-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christ Before the manger (p5) - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I love Christmas eve services.&nbsp; Gathering together, reflecting upon the incarnation of our Lord as we hold our lit candles high.&nbsp; I truly have the best seat in the house as I look out over the congregation&#8230;it&#8217;s a beatiful moment. When the early church gathered there was a hymn they sang that and I&#8217;m grateful&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/12\/christ-before-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-24T12:16:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/2007\/12\/24\/pour_water.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Christ Before the manger (p5) - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/12\/christ-before-3.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Christ Before the manger (p5) - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"I love Christmas eve services.&nbsp; Gathering together, reflecting upon the incarnation of our Lord as we hold our lit candles high.&nbsp; I truly have the best seat in the house as I look out over the congregation&#8230;it&#8217;s a beatiful moment. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}