faith for faith

It has been several years, but I do vaguely recall going to see Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. I personally had no desire to go, but some zealously thoughtful person had assumed that his friends would naturally want to go see the film shortly after its release and presumptively bought tickets to the show for me and some other of my close compadres. We went (since we were then financially obligated), and we experienced what was likely a common experience for those who went to see the movie, namely the gasps, the turning away of heads, the silent sobbing, the wails, and the somber departure from the theater. We had all witnessed the same things–a man flogged in excruciatingly gory detail, and we left as all did–utterly speechless.

If I recall that night correctly, it was quite a while before any of us dared to offer any commentary on the movie. It were as though we felt that we were obligated to keep silent after the film though the man in the movie was certainly not Jesus, and the movie was created and directed by a man who is unabashedly Catholic. Yet after the obligatory silence was lifted, a common thought about the message behind the story presented in the movie was, “So what?” Sure, the movie did what I believed it aimed to do, namely present the sufferings of a man in such a vivid and unapologetic way so as to drive its onlookers to deep pity and sorrow, but for what reason? The movie gave no explanation for the man’s sufferings, save it came through the betrayal one Judas Iscariot, yet in the context of the movie his suffering was terrible and pointless.

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I wish that there were some righteous reason as to why I have not posted on Faith for Faith since January 15, but I am afraid there is not. I wish that I could say that I was so engaged with activities of greater significance that I had not found the time to write, but that is simply not true. The reality is that my spiritual life has become so smothered by the minutiae of day-to-day living that I have lost sight of the greater Picture of Christ and his Kingdom. I feel that I have been slowly groping my way through a dense fog of busyness and labor and have slowly realized, like a man in a drunken stupor, that somewhere along the way I dropped my faith and have had difficulty tracing back my steps to where I lost it. I have fallen, much as Christian did in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, into the Slough of Despond, and in it I have become thoroughly reacquainted with the man who I am capable of being apart from Christ.

And it is not as though in this time I have become slothful and have ceased to work, but quite the contrary, I have been working as hard as I ever have. And that, it seems, has been my problem. I began our present journey with a righteous course–to free ourselves of debt for sake of the Kingdom–and yet have, through my labor, lost the chief goal of righteousness. I have forgotten in practice, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things will be added to you,” and have adopted a “work now, ask questions later” attitude with regard to achieving that which I believe God has laid on our hearts to accomplish instead of waiting on him to provide as only he can provide. Therefore, since September of last year, I have been practically working seven days a week to fill the gaps in our needs, rather than seeking provision from God so that he, not I, would receive the glory.

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The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him (Rm. 8:16, 17).

K. P. Yohannan made a simple yet profound statement regarding suffering in the life of the Christian. He said that we as Christians are to seek actively our cross and carry it, for no one is going to throw it upon us; we ourselves must pick up the cross of suffering, deny ourselves, and follow Christ. And we must do it, for the cross we are to pick up is not icing on the cake of Christianity or a merit badge for the holier among us, but it is essential and salvific, for we, as the apostle declares in his letter to the Romans, will not be glorified with Christ apart from suffering with him.

For all who have been baptized into Christ share completely in his identity. For they who were baptized into him were baptized into his death in order that they might also share in his resurrection. And as Christ’s life and death did not come apart from suffering, so our lives and deaths (if we are indeed followers of Christ) shall not come apart from suffering with him.

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“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). The call of Jesus Christ for any who would follow after him to “take up his cross” is a radical command. For Christ is not, as many who interpret the passage declare, speaking of one’s petty trifles, such as bad hair days, broken cars, etc., as one’s crosses, but that those who would follow after him must continually be killing themselves and their natural passions, by a bloody crucifixion nonetheless. It is an act of priestly service declaring to God and to the world the God whom we serve. The apostle Paul says in Romans 12:2 that this killing of ourselves, this offering up our “bodies as a living sacrifice” upon the altar of the Holy Spirit, is not merely something that is suggested of those who are radical followers of Christ and who are mentally unbalanced according to the world, but it is the “reasonable service” of those who are in him. Crucifying one’s self for the sake of following Christ is reasonable. Its reasonableness rests not in the act of crucifying one’s body, but it rests in what God through Jesus Christ has done. For, as the apostle puts it, the greatness of the “mercies of God” are such that all ambitions and pursuits in this age are brought to nothing in the light of God’s work. For if God did not spare the life of his only Son but gave him up for us all, why then would we not give up all things in this age to follow hard after him by putting to death the deeds of our bodies? (cf. Rm. 8:13). Indeed, it would be unreasonable for us to do otherwise. Therefore, if we who claim to be in Christ love and pursue the things of the world, viz. the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and pride in possessions (1Jn. 2:15, 16), we prove ourselves, in the least, to be unreasonable, and at the most, that the love of the Father is not in us in spite of our claims. Just a thought.