Often, when we hear Jesus talking about his death, we
only think of His physical death on the cross. This is something that has to
take place to all living organisms our physical death. But there is another death that is optional
but is also necessary in order to live a full life in Him. Can anyone suggest what that death might
be?
March 18 2018 readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34 John 12:20-33
As I said when we hear Jesus talking about his death, we only
think of His physical death on the cross. This is something that has to take
place to all living organisms our physical death. But
there is another death that is optional but is also necessary in order to live
a full life in Him. Can anyone suggest what that death might be? It is the death that produces real fruit in
our lives and allows us to live fully in Him.
I challenge you to think about death while looking through this
different lens. Someone was noted for
saying that you can only comprehend things according to the lens you are
looking through at that moment. Dr.
David Banks a well-known motivational speaker was asked to speaker at a women’s
convention in the 60s with over 3000 women in attendance. “Dr. Banks” one women asked “you must be a
bit nervous this evening”. “Why no why
would you say that” Banks asked? “Well
sir why are standing here in the Ladies restroom.”
When looking through a self-protective lens, surrender you
see is not an option. Just the mention
of death to some are dreaded words, let alone death to the self. Yet Jesus proclaims, unless I die, I will not
produce fruit. What he was really
saying was, unless I die to my own understanding, my own will, my own way, I
will not be able to live within my Fathers will. Jesus'
profound understanding of this radical lens of selflessness and radical
servanthood is a hard pill to swallow in this age of consumerism where the
focus is intently upon "my" sensual appetite and its fulfillment.
When Jesus talks about giving
it all or dying to self we squirm. We are fully aware of accidental death, death in war, death
through abortion, or as some governments have chosen to give us the personally
right to choose death over life. We can
rationalize death in so many other contexts yet, this call to die to self, is
the only kind of dying we do not fully comprehend or understand, in fact it is
what we shy away from more than physical death.
We have become so accustomed, hardened even desensitized to
the physical death of others because it is all around us daily, in the news and
on our TV’s. Yet we never really
associate death with our appetites for personal fulfillment of want and need.
But somehow folks, we must face that death to actually begin to live as Jesus
would have us live.
I have to admit that depriving myself of chocolate during
lent just doesn’t cut it folks.
Jesus wants more of me than just chocolate. In fact Jesus wants my all in all. I don’t know about you but I continue to
struggle with that, a complete surrender I mean. I guess being aware and facing this fact daily
helps to keep trying, but as Paul
says in Romans 7: 18-20 I know that good does not live in me—that is,
in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not
able to do it. I don't do the good I want to do; instead, I
do the evil that I do not want to do. If
I do what I don't want to do, this means that I am no longer the one who does
it; instead, it is the sin that lives in me.
May I suggest that a misunderstanding between the burdens we
carry and the cross we are asked to bear may help you as it did for me? While sitting at the bedside of a parishioner
who was about to die of cancer I envisioned the shadow of the cross was upon
him. This led me to enter more deeply into
the meaning of the cross in my own life.
Occasionally I hear people talk about the burdens they put up with on a
daily basis. Often this talk is accompanied
by significant complaining and even the gnashing of teeth. I have
to admit that I find it hard to "see"
a Cross in such conversations. As I discerned my feelings I begun to realize
that maybe we need to make a distinctions between a burdens and cross bearing. The
question that comes to mind is, are they the same? Burdens and cross bearing.
Things that happen in our lives that are difficult, hard to
understand or to comprehend are burdens that we carry. They can overwhelm us and we can just
collapse under their weight. They are
just that - burdens. Burdens are awful. When I hear the word "burdens," I
feel the weight and the tiredness and the weakness that the word implies. It depresses me even further as it seems to rob
me of any hope of recovery. Now here is
where our definitions and understandings can get off track. I can begin to think that the burdens
themselves are crosses that are thrust upon me to bear something to resist. Here is where we need to understand that the
meaning of “bearing your cross” is
not something that is thrust upon you. A burden only becomes a "cross" when
I choose to accept it, to carry it, but with much prayer, and the awareness of
what I am, who's I am, what I am doing and for whom I am doing it. Otherwise I am not carrying a cross, I am
just shouldering or staggering under a burden.
And if left as a burden its hopelessness will eventually crush me. Hope is the nugget, found in its transformation,
no longer a burden but the cross I bear.
Once a burden is transformed into a cross and I willingly
choose to embrace it, then something happens and transformation occurs. I
am given the strength to bear it. Jesus who shows me how to bear a cross gives
me hope, that my suffering will not be in vain, will not, despite appearances,
be wasted. I carry my cross with dignity
even if I sometimes stumble, as did Christ, beneath its weight. My eyes become fixed on the Author and
Finisher of all things instead of on my limited lens of sight. My eyes strain beyond the crucifixion and the
death, past the
darkness and silence of the tomb, into the dawn of an Easter morning. Jesus Saves. Journey well my friends, and the
congregations sang Amen.
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