Have you ever noticed how much children love to empty and fill containers of all shapes and sizes with water? My children love to get into my tupperware cupboard and pull every piece out and fill up the kitchen sink with water and just stand on their stools and empty and pour and empty and pour to their heart’s content. It is a source of great entertainment and delight for them to watch water trickle down, pour out, sprinkle and spray, and fill up anything that could contain it.
The scriptures are filled with stories of all kinds of people, of different shapes, sizes and colors, who long to be emptied and filled. For God, it is a source of great delight and joy to watch His creation live out their stories of being emptied and filled. From beginning to end, the books of the bible are one story after another of being emptied and filled and emptied again in order to be filled up yet again.
There is a space in everyone, and every thing, that desires to be filled with something. We are all living, breathing chalices that experience seasons of emptiness and seasons of fullness. Babies come into the world from a special empty womb- space deep inside their mothers. A glass isn’t a glass without an empty space to be filled with liquid. It is only the empty space that makes it a glass. The material that surrounds it really doesn’t matter. A house isn’t a house without the empty space inside the walls. It is what happens inside the empty space that tells the story of our lives… where we live, work, laugh, sleep, play, plan, cook, wash, invite, help, forgive, and love. A picture isn’t a picture without the space inside the frame. It only becomes a picture when we place a “work of art” inside the frame. The frame simply emphasizes the beauty of what is on the inside. The cells that make up our body also have an empty space called a vacuole. This space holds fluid and other nutrients essential to our existence. A cell cannot function without this empty space. Our existence depends upon that empty space being filled with what upholds, builds, and grows life.
Something as simple as a sentence must contain a space of emptiness between the words or we wouldn’t get its message or be able to communicate what we think and feel. Without that space, we have a string of letters. And there is space between our thoughts. We can literally halt our thinking, empty our minds, and simply be mindful of that emptiness… that gentle quiet. We can choose to fill that space in our minds with fear or with love. God can direct us and guide us in between our thoughts, if we allow that space to be emptied of us and filled with God’s words.
As we begin to approach the season of resurrection, we are awakened to Jesus, the one who came to fill the empty spaces in our minds, our hearts, and our world. Jesus sought out emptiness. He chose a ministry of emptying and filling, seeking out hollowed minds and barren hearts, so he could show us what we shouldn’t put in that space, as much as what we should place there. His great love was emptying hearts of hate, prejudice, fear, lack, and self-pity and then filling them with healing, love, trust, hope, faith, and a new vision.
He went to the well where a woman came with an empty pitcher to be filled with water. Not only was the empty pitcher filled, her heart was filled with a man who radically respected her, talked to her, listened to her, and accepted her for who she was. She was filled with the miracle of love…loving herself… so she could give love to the world around her.
Another woman emptied an alabaster jar of perfume, very expensive perfume, and poured the perfume upon his head. Jesus didn’t see this act of emptying and pouring as a waste. He saw this act of emptying to be a beautiful thing, an act of preparation for burial, where his lifeless body would fill the space of an empty tomb. Sometimes we must pour out upon the earth something we are attached to in order to be filled with a different form of life. Emptying ourselves, creating space inside of us, is a necessary ritual of divine preparation for what we need to let go of, so that love may rise up and fill us.
Six empty stone water jars, each capable of holding twenty to thirty gallons, were placed before Jesus at the request of his mother. Mary knew Jesus was ready to fill what was empty so the wedding banquet could continue. Jesus was hesitant, but commanded them to start filling the empty jars with water. What once was emptied was now filled with the wine of happiness and celebration! The feast of love could continue.
Jesus emptied temples, drove out demons, filled baskets with fish and bread, withdrew to empty places so he could be filled with God’s authority and truth. He wandered an empty desert, on an empty stomach, and came back to us overflowing with contentment and peace, having feasted on the Holy Spirit. He placed himself among the crowds who begged him to fill them with healing, forgiveness, and love. He prayed by himself in a lonely, empty garden. Emptying his eyes of tears and his body of sweat and blood, he demonstrated the fullness of courage as he carried an empty, heavy, wooden cross made from a tree, emptied of its leaves and fruit. He asked us to empty our pockets and give to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s, filling the world with prosperity of every kind. Jesus warned us it was the empty space in a needle that counts, the eye… the hardest space of emptiness to pass through. Emptying our life of what we think matters, is what we must happen in order to be filled with the fullness of the kingdom. Over and over we hear of the call to feed empty stomachs and clothe the empty, naked body. He loved children who are always in a state of emptiness… empty of the trappings of the adult mind, and filled with the riches of mind and hearts made of Heaven. Called to pour out the muddy waters of doubt from our hearts, we are constantly learning what fills our heart’s emptied chambers of faith.
Moses went up the mountain with empty hands and came down with his arms full of divine instruction and holy commands. Moses’ mother filled an empty reed basket with what was most precious to her… her baby boy. Trusting that the basket would be emptied yet again, after floating on a full river of faith, only to have her empty arms filled with her baby boy… her eyes filled up with the precious sight of baby Moses, the child she loved and protected. Sara, despite her age, surrendered her empty womb to God, trusted His promises of a son, and was filled with brand new life. Laughing, she emptied her mind of all limitations and filled her heart and her life with endless possibility.
In a couple of weeks, Christians will give witness once again to the greatest act of emptying and filling known to the followers of Jesus. His body emptied of blood and water, his mind emptied of fear, darkness, and judgment, he filled us all with forgiveness and innocence. Emptied of his clothing, his mother, and his spirit… emptied of everything this world was, he trusts God will fill him yet again. An empty cross will hold a body. An empty, dark tomb will hold death. Empty hearts will give way to weeping and the air will be filled with the sounds of grief. One woman will remain at the full tomb…waiting and hoping to be filled by love somehow, somewhere again… when the unexpected occurs. Another emptying… the entrance to the tomb of death and limitation opened, the kind of emptying that will cause her to cry tears of joy… her sight to be filled with the risen Lord. The empty tomb!
The season of Lent is about becoming aware of the emptiness all around us and inside of us. And the season of Easter is about the expectation and certainty of being filled with the fire of life, love, happiness, and belief in the presence of the Holy Spirit. After being filled yet again, his friends gather in an empty upper room to fill their minds and hearts with prayer, plans, and actions. They met in order to fill an empty position of leadership…. And in their vision was you and me… inheritors of seeking the empty so that all might be filled.
Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting… All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…
All of us are called to carry on the ministry and leadership of emptying and filling in our lives. But as women, and especially as mothers, we must be careful not to be so emptied that filling others becomes impossible. Before Jesus left his friends, he promised them that they would never be left emptied of God's love, instructions, guidance, and wisdom in how to embrace the empty times and the full times. Gather your family together in the space of your "upper room" in the coming Easter season. Make plans for how you are going to carry out the mission of filling hearts with love and light. And whenever your arms are full of bags, groceries, or diapers, or full with a baby, or whenever you wrap your hands around a full cup of hot coffee on a cold morning, or fill a thirsty child's glass with a drink of water, or hold out your empty hands to hold the bread of life, or fill an empty page with words, let this be God's reminder to you to fill a heart with love, forgiveness, and compassion.
Blessed are we who are emptied, for God will fill us again and again!
