AT CHRISTMAS GOD EMPTIED HIMSELF. That is a truth fundamental to everything Christians believe. God emptied Himself. Theologians call this the kenotic theory of the Incarnation. The Greek verb kenoun means to empty; the noun kenosis means an emptying. God emptied Himself and took up residence in the manger of Bethlehem.
It is said that Henry David Thoreau once spent a whole day in Walden Pond up to his neck in the water. His idea was to see and experience the world as a frog sees it! But Thoreau did not become a frog!
“Sesame Street” is closer to the Christmas story. They had a skit one time of the old fairy tale where the beautiful princess kisses an ugly frog and the frog becomes a handsome prince. In the Sesame Street telling, however, the princess kissed the frog, whereupon she turned into a frog herself. That is closer to what we celebrate at Christmas. God did not swoop down and survey the human situation from a safe distance. God emptied Himself. He lay aside His celestial robes to don the simple raiment of a man. Divinity clothed itself with dust.
It is an incredible idea. It is so incredible that many Christians only pay lip service to it. To accept the idea that the Bethlehem babe really is the incarnate God is to alter every truth with which we comfortably live. To say that Jesus Christ really is the incarnation of the living God is to say that his testimony is unalterably true. It means that when I go against his teachings, I am not merely asserting my own judgment, but that I am fundamentally in error. God emptied Himself.