We were driving the Trans-Canada Hiway on our way to a Kite Festival in Swift Current, Saskatchewan when this scene filled the horizon ahead of us. I can’t recall seeing such a vivid rainbow. The colours were rich and shimmered and seemed to pop in a way I had never noticed before. I found my thoughts turning to the quote from Ilia Delio’s book: The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love.
“Creation is a divine kenosis of divine love, emptying of the divine self into the other.” – Ilia Delia
Kenosis is one of those $25 theological words which simply means the self-emptying of oneself. An example would be the incarnation. To me, this is loaded with gift language – the giving of oneself to another as a gift, for love’s sake. For it to be a gift, it implies that it has no strings attached. No expectation of reciprocation. To love with no demand of love in return. Coercive? No. Persuasive? Most certainly!
The rainbow in my picture looked so much like the colour was being poured out into this world and the idea that divine love empties itself into the other. How God in Christ poured himself into humanity, and how Christ emptied himself, gave himself to rescue us from ourselves.
It was a “Living colour” illustration that the nature of God and his disposition towards his good creation is, and always has been one of love. A self-emptying love. A self-emptying love at work, that when it’s all said and done will makes all things beautiful.