Learning while Teaching

Take up Your Cross, Daily, Lenten Reflection #5

The third passage of Scripture I am zeroing in on during this Lenten season is found in Mark 8:

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the God will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? If any of you are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mark 8:34-38)

Tonight, February 24, 2015, I started thinking about this passage and Jesus' words: "...take up their cross..." I have no fancy words to help us understand this. Jesus flat out says: "If you want to follow me, you must die."

Daily.

In other words, "Offer your body, your very selves, as living sacrifices to God." Essentially there is no difference between what Jesus said and what Paul wrote.

Daily.

I'm wondering: Did I die today? Did I give up today? Did I quit today? Did I stay on the altar today? Did I stay on the cross today?

Daily.

Just before this Jesus said to Peter, yes, Peter who had just rebuked Jesus for daring to suggest that was going to be killed, Jesus said to that Simon bar Jonah, "Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns."

Daily.

It's easy enough to understand, right? The person who refuses to die daily has little more in mind than the things of Satan. The person who willingly goes to the cross, daily, is able to 'test and approve what God's will is--his good, and pleasing, and perfect will.' If we want to be Jesus' disciple--that should give us pause too, right?: Do we really have the will to be Jesus' disciple? Do we really want to be his disciple? Do we really want to follow him?

Because if we do there is only one way to do so: Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow Jesus. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus then you are required to follow Jesus where Jesus leads. You are required to deny yourself--all those urges, and doubts, and fears, and desires, and lusts. You are required to die.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. (Romans 6:11-12; and read the rest too.)

Daily.

This means that much of the extracurricular things we do on a daily basis, as long as we are living, will have to be forgotten. It means that my will must necessarily take less than a backseat. It means my will must be outside the car and way back at the truck stop. It means I must stop giving priority to my will, my plans, my ambition, my dreams, my desire, my lusts, and myself. It means that if these things are at the forefront of my daily existence that I am not looking intently at Jesus.

It means that the will of Jesus must be the overarching, governing theme of my everyday existence. It means we need to spend time with Jesus each day so that we might test what his will is, so we will know where to God, so we will know what to do. It means I must die: quite literally and quite figuratively. 

Why do you think the sacrificial offerings were offered daily in ancient Israel? They were daily reminders that sin costs. They were daily reminders that someone else was paying the price.

Daily.

This brings us back to Hebrews 12:1-2:

And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Because as I wrote in another post: when we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus we know exactly where we are going and in what direction we need to travel to get there.

Daily.

Jesus gave his life for everyone else. We are to give our lives to Jesus.

Daily.

Fixed Eye Faith, Lenten Reflections #2

Several years ago I became rather obsessed with the book in the New Testament we call 'Hebrews.' I don't remember the exact dates off the top of my head, I just remember catching a glimpse of it one day (I think I may have been reading N.T. Wright's book Following Jesus) and then diving in deeper until I absolutely fell in love with the short letter. Aside from those concerning chapter 11, I have heard very few sermons from Hebrews--which is a shame. It's a beautiful book in every way and, in my opinion, not terribly difficult to interpret.

Well, of course there are some parts that are difficult to understand and which might call for some more nuanced explanations, but I think if a person reads the book slowly and looks for some key clues in context (which are rather easy to find in our English Bibles), then the book begins to make sense in every way. And the truth is, I'd love to share that with you and perhaps someday I will. Tonight though I'd just like to focus for a minute on the particular verse that is kind of my theme verse during this Lenten season.

"And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:1b-2)

I kept coming back to this verse today...thinking about Jesus being the author (pioneer; trailblazer) of our faith and why, if this is true, I should 'fix my eyes' on him. Because let's be honest,it's not like I can literally see him no matter how hard I stare and no matter how fixed my eyes become on a particular spot in the sky. It's not that I think Jesus is in the sky, but, well, I guess that's where I have been trained to look for God: up there.

So the questions are something like: How do I fix my eyes on Jesus? and Why do I fix my eyes on Jesus.

I have heard a lot of folks get down on the church or Christianity or even Jesus. They have things to say like, "Oh you are just running away from your problems." Or, "You are just avoiding all the lousy stuff in the world." Stuff like that. But I don't think that's it at all. The book of Hebrews does not say we are running away from anything--but we are running to someone. Just because we are running to someone doesn't mean we are running from anything though. I look at all that went on in the life of Jesus, his apostles, his saints...they were hardly escapists practicing escapism. I think the key is found in the first word of chapter 12: Therefore.

The word 'therefore' follows closely on the heels of everything that was written in the 'great faith chapter', Hebrews 11 which, interestingly enough, begins with a discussion of faith: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for" (11:1-2). Oh, so faith is being certain of things we do not see...therefore...fix your eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith. Faith is not about not seeing, it's about seeing the right things. Faith is not about blindness, it's about being perfectly sighted. Faith is not being oblivious to what we see or endure in this world, it's about being fully aware that this world is not all there is.

Faith is about knowing where to look. Faith is about knowing to whom we look. Faith is about being able to discern who gives us hope and who does not. I find it not one bit ironic or strange that the author of Hebrews then points us to the one place where there is absolutely no historical doubt: Jesus was crucified. Of there there is not one shred of doubt--except from the sort of people who would not have faith anyhow. Yet because of this crucifixion we have faith that sees beyond this culture of death we have created--the world walks hand in hand with the devil who comes to 'kill, steal, and destroy.' Don't mistake it; it's all around us. Yet we are among those who do not fear death, even though we fear it, because we fix our eyes on Jesus.

Like when Stephen was being stoned to death in Acts 7: "Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." That is faith! Faith that sees.

So look at all of chapter 11 and see the sort of trouble all those saints got into precisely because they refused to look anywhere but Jesus. For example, "By faith, Moses, when he had grown up refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy a season of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible." Amazing...Moses had eyes powerful enough to see someone who is invisible!

Faith isn't about 'blind-leaps'; faith is about being able to see beyond what normal eyes can see. Faith has eyes to see things at a distance and welcome them. Faith has eyes to see a better city, a better land than the one we live in now. Faith has eyes to see beyond the destruction of the flesh. Faith looks forward to a better resurrection. Faith has eyes to see Jesus...even amidst the clutter and culture of death that surround us.

You see, I think what I've been learning is this: it is terribly difficult to go through life with eyes that scatter all around--like Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter books whose crazy eye was constantly zipping this way and that. Life doesn't function so well when that's what we are doing with our eyes. Our eyes need to be fixed on Jesus--the pioneer, trailblazer, architect, author and perfecter of our faith. I think sometimes I work too hard trying to muster up faith and I get discouraged when I fail. I'm always looking around trying to catch a glimpse of what faith looks like, heroic faith, radical faith. And people, some people, make a living telling the rest of us what real faith looks like. And then we try to recreate that faith in ourselves.

We don't need radical faith. We don't need heroic faith. We need Jesus. And if that sounds naive and simple, you're welcome.

I'm tired of tips and techniques for mastering faith. I want simple. I want simply to fix my eyes on Jesus because it seems to me if someone else was able to pioneer and perfect our faith we would have been told to fix our eyes on that person. But the author of Hebrews says we are to fix our eyes on Jesus...who understands the faith he calls us to and will perfect that faith in us...because he too endured the cross. He led the way!! He has blazed the trail he asks us to follow. So even if he calls us to 'take up our cross daily, deny ourselves, and follow him' we know he will not fail...and the faith he creates in us will not either.

It's kind of like taking a business model that works in city A and recreating in city B--which has nothing of the demographic markers that city A has and expecting it to work. Or it's like trying to take a model of church growthism and recreating it in another church in another town and expecting it to work the same wonders. All are doomed to failure. Well, here's the thing: I can neither create nor perfect faith...any faith. I simply cannot be entrusted with such a task. It is, and I am, doomed to failure. And so long as I look to myself or to others or all around that faith is doomed to destruction. Only Jesus can create and perfect the sort of faith that I need in my life...the kind of faith that looks beyond the failures and deaths of this world. This kind of faith, the sort spoken of in chapter 11, is resurrection faith. It's faith in Jesus, who, "shared in [our] humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Faith is not perfected by ignoring what's going on around us, but rather by keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus despite all that is going on around us. We fail because we try to create our own faith. We fail because we think we know what faith is and what it looks like. Do we really think self-manufactured faith will be enough to see beyond the deaths of this world? Will our own manufactured faith be enough for us to scorn family like Abraham? Will our own manufactured faith be enough to deny the pleasures of this world like Moses? Will our own manufactured faith be enough to obey God when he asks us to do something ridiculous as he did Noah? Will our own manufactured faith be enough to speak boldly the word of God in the face of death as did the prophets? Will our own manufactured faith be enough to scorn the cross for the joy set before us? Will our own manufactured faith be enough for us to run the race marked out for us?

Do you trust yourself to create and perfect that sort of faith? I don't.

Whatever else this verse teaches me, it teaches me that I absolutely cannot get by a single moment of my life apart from Jesus. And what's more? We fix our eyes on Jesus because...wait for it...because He is our reward...He is the joy set before us....He is the goal of our faith.

And if we fix our eyes on Jesus, then we know exactly where we are going and to whom we are heading. Right? If we are fixed on Jesus, then we have no confusion whatsoever about our path or our destination.

Right?

[Feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you.]