New Thoughts (10/1/08-10/7/08)
Once again, Jesus speaks of those who are willing, those who are resolved and determined. Having just spoken on His words regarding those who are thus willing to do God’s will (Jn 7:17) at men’s retreat, this matter of willing is still in the forefront of my mind. Determined. Taking action on a conscious decision. This is what’s in sight, not the flimsy wishful thinking of a teenager. He’s not discussing those who really, really wish their parents would let them do this disciple thing, or who hope they might possibly become a disciple when they grow up. He’s talking to men who have decided to put a determined effort into it.
What have they resolved and determined to do? To come after Him, to be His disciple. Let’s be clear about this. To become His disciple is no philosophical pursuit. It’s not a matter of memorization and intelligent discourse. It’s about making His lessons a way of life. His lessons, of course, consist of more than just His words. His actions, His example; these, too, are part of the lesson. Just as the word and action of the Father are the stuff from which He draws His lessons, so His own word and action are the stuff from which we are to draw our own. Whether we teach anybody beyond ourselves, we are still teachers of these lessons, and we, too, must teach by example as well as by word.
So, those whom Jesus addresses are those who are resolved and determined to live life by the example Jesus sets in both word and deed. That’s a much sterner measure to my ears than ‘anyone who wishes to come after Me.’ To my ears, to wish still has room to take it or leave it. To come after does not speak to me of lifestyle and habit, it’s just hanging out, like the kid brother who wants to go wherever his older brother is going. He isn’t determined in his mind to be just like his big brother. He may wish (again without really acting on it) to be like his brother in some way, probably in being big and in having the liberties he sees his brother as having. But, it’s the thrill of association he’s after, not the hard work of becoming.
Jesus is calling to those who are determined to put their hands to the hard work of becoming. It’s a call to discipleship, not to devotion. Devotion is happy to lie about in moon-faced adorations, singing songs of love and sending flowers, offering serenades below the balcony of its object d’amour. Discipleship is work. It takes effort. It requires self-denial. That’s the main point of what Jesus is telling us here, or one major point at any rate. You can’t do it if you can’t deny yourself. You can’t do it if you aren’t willing to set your own interests and desires aside, because you are going to find your interests at cross purposes to His.
Our desires are, by nature of the fall, fleshly, fallen things. The lusts of the flesh define us, define what moves our thinking and shapes our actions. That is changing as we are renewed in Him, but it remains a major part of us. Jesus, on the other hand, is defined by the purposes of the spirit, and not just the spirit, but the Spirit of the Living God. He is driven by the perfect will of the Ancient of Days, the perfect, loving Father. Whenever our will begins to line up with His, we are going to feel the needles of the flesh denied. It’s a given. The question we must ask ourselves is how we shall respond to those needles. If we are determined and resolved to make His Way our lifestyle, then we will, by His gracious assistance, brush those needles aside and continue. If we are not, then the first little stings will have us running back to our old ways and our old habits, proving that we are not disciples of this One after all.
Now, don’t get me wrong. We will stumble. We will have our failures. But, look at the course of your life over time, especially that time since He first called you. Is there a sense of progress? Do we stumble over the same little things that used to trip us up when first we made this decision? If they do, then I think we’d best evaluate whether we ever truly decided. If we have indeed determined to order our lives as disciples of this Christ, however, I think we must find there is evidence in our history that we have improved. We still stumble and fall, but it takes more to make it happen. The things that used to trip us up in the beginning are now matters we can laugh at. Oh, we still have a long way to go, but look how far we’ve come already! Yes, and as we grow, we know. We know that Paul has the right of it when he tells us that it’s all because God has been working in us, empowering us both to be determined in our own will and effective in our working towards that will. Is it not this sense of God being imminent in our efforts that causes us to work out this way of salvation with fear and trembling? It is precisely because we are so keenly aware that apart from God we could never have become who we are that we don’t work it out with pride and hubris. It is precisely because we understand that ‘apart from Me, you can do nothing.’
I like the way the Living Bible has phrased this call. “Anyone who wants to follow me must put aside his own desires and conveniences.” In a sense, that seems to trivialize the call, but really it’s our own triviality that is in sight. It’s our own triviality in sight because we find it so hard to do even that much on account of our faith. What? It’s going to inconvenience me? What if I have something going on Sunday morning? You know, church isn’t the only thing happening in my life. Ouch! I know I have felt this way from time to time.
So, let me say this: I think there is a point where it is quite reasonable to reject the invasive nature of the church. Churches, being perpetually understaffed with willing volunteers tend to lay more and more upon whatever volunteers they have. It is incumbent upon those who do volunteer to have some sense of their limits, and even more importantly, to have a clear sense of their calling. If the task being given is not within the call God has given, then there is good reason to politely decline. If our work done for the Church is not done at God’s behest, but only because of some sense of guilt, or that form of pride that is sure it won’t get done if I don’t do it (or at least not done right), it is a dead – and therefore deadly – work. It does nobody any good.
But, my desires, my convenience; these are insufficient cause to set the Way aside. Discipleship requires self-denial of us. The example Jesus sets for us, the life He call us to lead, is not easy, and it’s not convenient by any stretch. It will require us to choose the harder choice more often than not. It’s easy to cheat and lie to get ahead. It’s much harder to persist in being a man of character even at cost to one’s own interests. It’s easy to do a favor for a friend. It’s much harder to be more than merciful, to be tangibly kind, to one who has done us tangible harm. It’s very easy to get along. It’s nigh on impossible to truly love. And that, above all things, is the character of those who are truly disciples of the Son of God’s love.
Neither is this a one time matter. It’s not just a case of weathering the embarrassment of friends finding out we’ve become ‘one of them’. It’s not just getting through the public display of baptism. Shoot! For most of us, that’s hardly a public display anyway. It’s done within the protecting walls of the church where only those who have been there before us are looking. But, this is going to be a daily matter, in many cases hourly if not more frequent still. Every decision of the day bears its portion of the crisis. Will we decide with an eye to the righteousness of Christ, or will we decide to do what seems good to us? Every word spoken (and this is perhaps the hardest trial) will either reflect a son of heaven or a son of hell. James was hardly the last to notice that the same tongue reflects both cases, often in rapid succession. Brothers, these things ought not to be!
Oh, believe me, I know how the tongue wants to lash out with acerbic commentary upon one and all. I know the snide comment, the derogatory humor, the belittling jibe. I have them all in my arsenal, to my shame. And, I pull them out and fire them off with far too great a frequency. But, what am I instructed here? “Deny your own interests daily!” Make an effort, son. Play the man! Stand up to your brute instincts and mature in Christ. Resist the temptation to speak as you know you ought not to speak. If you would be known as a son of the living God, then start acting like one! It’s going to cost you some effort, but rejoice! The One who calls you has paved your way before you. And, in Him, you can do it! In Him, you can do all things!
There’s that old song of the church that says, “let’s forget about ourselves, and concentrate on Him.” That’s what we’re talking about here. Wuest puts it in terms very close to this. To those who desire to follow the Christ, he has Jesus declare, “let him at once begin to lose sight of himself and his own interests, and let him at once begin to take up his cross and carry it […] and let him continue to do so moment by moment.” (Mk 8:34). In translating Luke 9:23, he puts it even more plainly. This self-denial is to be done “at once and once for all.” No looking back. No half measures. Having committed yourself to this course, commit yourself to traveling only in the forward direction. This is, if you’ll pardon the inappropriate nature of the analogy, the big gamble. It’s time to throw down everything you’ve got on this choice. What’s lost in the gamble is lost, gone for good. Don’t go trying to take it back. But, what you stand to gain in this gamble is so much better. Even though you will lose everything you have, everything you are, you will not lose. You will gain so much more than everything!
“Discipleship involves a death that is like a crucifixion,” says one of the footnotes in the NET. Indeed, it is very like that, with one very great exception: one Paul takes note of in writing to the Galatians. Unlike the physical cross, the cross of discipleship cuts both ways. Through the power of gospel redemption, not only are we cut of from the world as one who has died. Likewise, the world is cut off from us as dead (Gal 6:14). These two are at war one with the other, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the world. We have been captive in the world kingdom, even willing servants of its usurping order for far too long. To become a disciple of the Living Christ requires that we die to that kingdom.
In many communities, this is very near to being a manifest physical reality. To become a convert to Christ is to be declared dead to one’s own family. They will disown you, mourn over you as one who has gone to the grave. They know not how right they are! They also fail to recognize the resurrection that has already transpired, the rebirth into the kingdom of God. As they have counted you as dead, so you, too, are called to count the world and its ways as dead to you. Be crucified to the ways of the flesh. Be crucified to sin’s temptations. What dead man ever responded to the greatest enticement? They have pronounced you dead? Good! Let it be so! Let this new life lived in pursuit of the One who called us out of that darkness wholly consume our attention.
Oh, yes, we will continue to participate in this world, because this is what He has commanded of us. But, it’s different now. We participate as beacons in the dark. We participate as living proof that there is a better way. And this, more than anything, is what makes discipleship so very hard. Were we in God’s heaven today, discipleship would be as simple as breathing and just as natural. But we’re not. We remain within the enemy camp. And, yet, we are called to so stand, so speak and so act that all must recognize that we are aliens and sojourners here. Yes, we are to so live our lives that those looking upon us might see and be enticed themselves to pursue this more excellent Way.
To have ended on such a thought yesterday and then to have experienced such a day. How is it, Lord, that it so often seems to break this way? All I can do is ask Your forgiveness and pray that today will be better. Daily, Lord. Let that daily concept remain in the forefront of my thoughts today. Time being short, this will be the extent of my time this morning, but I will see You in Your house shortly, and I pray that You will keep me mindful of the pattern You showed us on the mountaintop of retreat. Blessed be Your name, Lord, and would You please see fit to lift the cloud from off this house.
For my part, the most powerful part of this particular message is found in Mark 8:37, and here, I find I the point brought out most forcefully in the Weymouth translation. “For what could a man give to buy back his life?” That is the issue. It’s not a question, even, of needing to do so again. Yesterday, the message at our service had something to say on the subject of those who have crucified Christ yet again, and suggested that repentance and communion might somehow do away with such a crime against heaven. I’m not so sure about that, but the point is not too far off. Truly, our sins (a reality on any given day) do add to the weight of that price Jesus paid. But, to the degree of having once more crucified Him? It may serve a rhetorical point to state it thus, but if taken at face value, it seems to put one quite close to the point of no possible return.
What Jesus is addressing here, though, is sin with the crucifixion still future. He is not looking at the one who has fallen away, but looking at those who have yet to even start on the road. If you are determined to follow Me… His point is clear. There’s a choice to be made. Following is going to come at a steep price. Discipleship cannot be mixed with worldly pursuits, at least not in some fashion that seeks to pick and choose which parts of which lifestyle one will take on.
The New Age approach to belief, indeed the whole modern worldview, whether in some system of religious belief or in its absence, is to play this game of pick and choose. I like this tenet of Christianity, but I’m not into that whole self-sacrifice scene. I like this conceptualization from Buddhism, but no, I’d never condone being a Buddhist. I like the moral laws, but not the idea of any sort of moral absolutes. I mean, just because it seems right to me doesn’t make it right for anybody else, right? I wouldn’t want them forcing their views on me, after all. To all of this Jesus gives a resounding, “No!” You can’t sort of follow Me. You can’t follow Me in part. Think about it. He is teaching in a world well-versed in the pantheistic ways of Rome and Greece. Yes, He is speaking primarily to Jews, who at least ought to be monotheistic, but the Hellenization has begun. The idea that one can serve many gods has been filtering in.
We may not think in terms of gods, but the principles are little different in our own time, nor are we any more successful at avoiding their influence. Just look at the degree to which opinion has overtaken any sense of Truth in the church. Just look at the degree to which we prefer visions and charismatic entertainment to a clear declaration of the Truth of God as provided to us in the pages of Scripture. How many still hold to expounding on the Word of God, rather than delivering vaporous imaginations? How many prefer the stuff of the Gospel to the stuff of the latest news broadcasts? How many still preach the Gospel in hopes of having a societal impact rather than preaching from the current social trends in hopes of improving church attendance?
What good is it? What good is it if we gain the approval of the world and boost our numbers but only at the cost of the soul of the Church? If the heart of the Church is destroyed, that church is lost for eternity, and its members with it. And, what could it possibly offer in exchange for the souls it has destroyed? What price could possibly suffice as evidence of true repentance? There, apparently, is the corporate application. But, let’s bring it back to the personal.
What could you possibly offer God in exchange for your soul? If you reject the offer He has so graciously extended, if you will not allow the Christ, the Son of the Living God to make payment on your behalf, what is it you think you could offer instead? Listen! The blood of lambs and goats and oxen and whatever other creatures were ever laid out on the altars of Israel were never enough. They may have pointed the way, but they did not provide it. They may have delayed the accounting for a time, but they did not clear the balance due. There has been and ever shall be but one price sufficient to the cost, and that is this Son Who is speaking in these sentences. He is that One who is saying, “If you are decided to follow Me, you will need to deny yourself daily, take up the burden of your cross daily, and truly, wholeheartedly follow Me.”
We cannot follow Him if our eyes are on the marketplace. We cannot follow Him if our concern is with profit margins. We cannot follow Him if we are conniving and calculating how much we can get away with in our worldly pursuits. It won’t work. It is a rejection of His offer. It is gaining the world at the cost of self. The loss is incalculable. Though you were to lay hold of all the riches of this world, though you were to rule all the nations on this old globe and have all their resources at your disposal, still you could not so much as make a down payment on your own soul. The redemption of a soul is costly (Ps 49:8).
My, but that’s a troubling passage! No man can redeem his brother, not even put a scratch on the price tag. No man can offer God the price of his brother’s ransom. It is too costly, the soul. Stop trying to pay for it on your own. It is beyond your means and ever shall be. You cannot buy eternal life. You cannot avoid the grave by your own effort. Look, wise man and fool die alike, and leave their wealth to somebody else. Sure, and they think to themselves that their house has been so firmly established that it will last forever, but their pomp will not endure. It is no more permanent than the beasts that perish and leave no trace of themselves. They have pursued the way of the fool, and satisfied themselves with the praises of those who think no better than they (Ps 49:7-13).
The key, though, is the message of verse 8. The redemption of the soul is costly, costly beyond the capacity of any man to pay. The system of sacrifices does not suffice to the task. It but turns the eyes to the impossibility of our dilemma. It requires more to bring about reconciliation with the Righteous and True God. So, Jesus asks us to think about the big question, “What will you give in exchange for your soul?”
So many stories are written of the deals men have made. All of them, though seem to reverse the picture, and ask, “What price have you received for your soul?” Those that seek to offer some grain of truth always come back to the fact that whatever that price was, it was never worth it. It was never a good deal, nor could it be. What profit could you possibly have that justifies the forfeit of your soul? What can be worth more than an eternity spent in the light of God’s glory?
Jesus, though, looks at it correctly. The exchange has already been made. You have already sold your soul into slavery. The only question is what you can possibly do to gain it back now that you realize what you’ve done. The answer is hinted at in the things He says surrounding this big question. “The Son of Man is going to come in glory.” Well, yes, He’s already here. Is He not speaking to the group that has come to this realization, that He truly is the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah? Well, then, they ought to hear something in the news that He who is here is still to come. If He is to come, then He must first depart. This note about the cross, coming on the heals of the message that He is about to be delivered up by the ruling counsel in Jerusalem, might be seen as a pretty effective foreshadowing of the means of His departure.
He has been saying it pretty clearly, for all the imagery. “I am going to die. It is necessary.” We, with the benefit of hindsight, can easily make the connection between that statement, and the question before us. “What price could you pay?” “I AM dying on my behalf.” In Him, my debt has been paid. It was necessary. There was no other way.
Yes, we can see that, because we abide on this side of the cross. But, for these listening to Him, the cross is yet future. These were words whose full impact could not be felt, I suspect, until well after events had unfolded. Maybe they began to make sense to those gathered in the upper room. Even then, though, it would take divine intervention, the divine insight of the Holy Spirit, to really get the point across. Oh! That’s what was going on. Aha! So this is how death has lost its sting. So this is what He meant with all that business about His needing to die, about us taking up our cross alongside Him. But, until then, there was nothing for it but hard words.
The fundamental statement of the Cross is that we cannot walk proudly before the Lord. We can only walk humbly in the recognition that He has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. What could we give? Nothing! For, we have nothing to begin with, and what little we ever had we had long since signed away to our captor. Nothing! That’s what we can do without Him even yet. Pride? On what basis? The only foundation we can possibly establish for pride is self-deception. No, there is only walking humbly before Him, else there is an eternity awaiting in which to pay the price of that pride.
You know, we see Peter throughout the pages of this history as a man of pride. He may not always strike us as such, but why do you suppose it is that he always seems to be the one rising up to speak on behalf of the disciples? Do you ever hear of them voting him into that position? No! He just assumes it. He is always quick to speak his opinion as though it were undeniable fact. It’s not merely impetuousness that makes him behave in this way, it’s pride. But, with the benefit of years and with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, he reached an understanding beyond all expectation. Here is the one who was offended when Jesus called John aside. Yet, he comes to this brilliant conclusion, “Be holy like the Holy One who called you. It is written, ‘you shall be holy, for I am holy,’ so be holy in all your behavior. Look! If you address the impartial judge of all men as Father (in other words, if you are serving the True God of all creation) then conduct yourselves accordingly. Walk in reverent fear so long as you tarry upon the earth, seeking always to be like Him. For you were not redeemed with things that perish. No embarrassment of riches purchased you from your punishment. No! You were bought with the most precious blood, the blood of Christ, the spotless and unblemished One” (1Pe 1:15-19).
There’s a chorus to a song that I am particularly fond of which says, “Oh, Lord, there’s nothing I do that can make me holy before You.” That’s the truth of it. It is only the work of this Christ who willingly, though with trepidation, faced death upon the Cross after such beatings and humiliation as would have crushed any man, that we stand. And stand we shall, for He causes us to stand, not on our merits but on His sacrifice; never on our works, for no man shall ever boast of his doings before God, but never without such good works as give evidence of the faith He has implanted, those works we were created to achieve by the power of God working in us to will and to work for His good pleasure.
So, I’m reading this passage yet again this morning, and I find myself thinking about how the disciples were receiving this message. Recall that Mark notes specifically that Jesus had called the crowds around to join Him and His disciples. He then begins speaking to those who want to come after Him. In other words, He is addressing those who would join the ranks of the disciples. Now, it is in the way of human nature for pride to arise swiftly at the least provocation. I do not for a moment suppose that the disciples, not even the twelve, were any different in that regard. No sooner had Jesus made that opening proposition than they were preening, if not outwardly then inwardly. Oh, yeah! If they want to become like us! We’ve already arrived, and we’ll always have the edge of having been the first ones into that line. If you doubt that assessment, just think about that question James and John tossed His way later. Hey! Why don’t you arrange it so that we can sit to either side of Your throne. We were the first of the first, after all.
If indeed their thoughts were wandering in that direction, imagine the systemic shock when the qualifications are listed. Deny ourselves? Well, sure, we’ve done that. Didn’t we leave everything behind to follow Him? Of course, the record shows that what they left behind was there waiting for them when they returned. Recall that in the shock of seeing Jesus crucified, they all went back to fishing, back to life as it has been before Christ. But, yes, they felt that they had certainly satisfied that part of the calling. But, take up his cross? Hey! Wait just a minute, there, Jesus! You are the victorious king, the redeemer of Israel. What’s all this about a cross? You never brought that up when we signed on. Losing life for Your sake? Well, OK. I suppose that those who follow the Warrior King must expect to fight. But, aren’t You the victor in this? What champion of Israel ever died in the battle? It was always God who did the fighting, wasn’t it?
Then there is the shear mystery component of His message. Whoever loses his life will find it and save it? How that can be? There He goes again, speaking the incomprehensible. But, at least this time, He has followed it up with something one might wrap himself around. We’ve all known the crooked businessman, the one who will do anything for a profit. Sure, we get that. But, what has this to do with being a disciple? We’re no businessmen. Well, Matthew had his tax collecting, but he’s given that up. Nah. We’re simple men, common folk. We’ve always been upright in our dealings, so what’s this really about? What will we give for our soul? I’ve made no devil’s bargain! So, why should there be any cause to pay ransom? Ah, but the thoughts must return to the Temple, to the Law of Moses, to the annual day of Atonement, and the whole system of sacrifices. What was their purpose if not to redeem us from the due penalty of our sins?
I have to say, had it been myself sitting there as one of His disciples, listening to this message I should doubtless have been mightily confused by the time He stopped speaking. Where is He going with all this? Is He trying to drive people away (yet again?) Is He trying to drive us away? Why does He always seem to want to confuse us so? Yet, He has the words of life. How could we ever be ashamed of that?
And yet, we know the time would come when they were indeed ashamed. Praise God that the story didn’t end there, with the eleven who remained condemned for their fear, their doubt, their shame. Even Peter, that most egregious example of denying association with the Son of God, is in time reinstated, and not only reinstated but in some wise promoted. I do not speak of his primacy, for there is no such thing established in the record. But, he was promoted as a true pillar of the Church, and as such he would stand to the end of his days and beyond.
Now, the last thing I want to touch on is a matter of translation. The God’s Word translation, in rendering Luke 9:26, speaks of the glory that Jesus shares with the Father and the holy angels. In all fairness, though, such a translation cannot stand, for it fails to accord with the whole of Scripture. Were it said that He was to come in the glory He shares with the Father, that could be accepted. Repeatedly, we are told that God is a jealous God, unwilling to share His due worship with any other being or thing. He is a consuming fire (Dt 4:24). He is the God who declares, “I will not give My glory to another” (Isa 42:8). Indeed, this was one of the major issues that the Pharisees had with Jesus, that He laid claim to sharing with the Father. So, yes, by all means, He and the Father being One, they partake of the same essential glory. But, the angels? I think not. They remain created beings, like to ourselves even in their difference. They are no more able to share in His glory than are we. Moses, when his face shown from being in the presence of God, did not even then share in the glory of God, but merely reflected it for a time, for that glory which is God’s is as it were a contagion. It cannot be contained where it has been contacted.
We, who in our day cry out so often to see God’s glory, neglect the true awesomeness of Him upon Whom we call. Show us Your glory? Why not just cry out, kill me now! We may chuckle at the poor uneducated Israelites who cringed from touching that mountain Moses ascended, who begged him to mediate on their behalf for fear of that One who met him on the mountaintop. But, really, all it means is that they had a far clearer sense of God’s holiness than we have ever had. They understood that to see Him was to die. They may not have fully grasped the nature of that death, but they knew it was death. Moses must also have recognized that reality, even as he asked the favor of God. This was, after all, a man (the only man?) who spoke with God ‘face to face’ (Ex 33:11). I suppose, given that, he had already experienced that death, and understood it as no other of his time was likely to. So, sure, being dead already, why not ask the ultimate. I’ve seen Your face, God, so now, show me Your glory.
For my part, as pretty as the words sound, and as noble the sentiment, God, it suffices if You will continue to show me Your mercy. Let Your glory await the time in which You have completed my preparations for such a sight.
