The Octopus Mother Who Gave Everything

In 2007, researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute discovered a deep-sea octopus clinging to a rocky ledge nearly a mile beneath the Pacific. Lead scientist Bruce Robison and his team returned again and again over the following years, and each time they found her in the same spot, arms curled protectively around her clutch of eggs. She never moved. She never ate. For fifty-three months — four and a half years — she brooded those eggs in the cold darkness, her body slowly wasting away. When the eggs finally hatched, the tiny octopuses drifted upward into the ocean. Their mother, spent and starving, died shortly after.

She poured out everything she had so they could live.

When the apostle Paul writes that Christ "emptied Himself" for our sake, the Greek word is kenosis — a complete pouring out. Jesus did not cling to the privileges of heaven. He descended into the dark of human suffering and wrapped Himself around us, shielding us with His own body. He gave up nourishment in the wilderness, comfort in Gethsemane, and breath on the cross — all so that we might rise into new life.

That octopus had no choice; instinct drove her. But the sacrifice of God was deliberate, chosen before the foundation of the world. The Almighty looked into the deep darkness where we were lost and said, "I will go. I will stay. I will give everything."

That is the nature of holy love — it holds nothing back.