The scripture reading from a service I attended recently got me thinking about what is arguably one of the biggest killers in life. It continues to turn everything upside down as far as life is concerned.
To live, you have to die.
There is no other way to live, than to die.
When Jesus is rebuking Peter in this episode and then going onto explain to the crowd as well as the rest of the disciples what it is to follow Jesus, He is actually talking about what it is to live. Self-preservation is fundamental to who and what we are that the thought of death is a taboo subject in some cultures.
The way of Christ – self-denial, cross carrying and following goes against most of the instincts with which we’re geared. Yet Jesus is not just talking about self-denial and cross carrying. Jesus is talking about the way to live. The only way to live.
For if the same power that rose Jesus from the dead lives in us then the death of the inner man can only lead to the new life of Christ emerging and enabling a life that can never die.
Jesus did not go to the cross just to die and carry sins – there was a greater joy that awaited Him. In a world that looks for incentives it’s intriguing that it ignores an incentive that couldn’t get any better – a life that can never end, a fullness that can never be depleted, a richness that can never be impoverished, a true humanity that can never be sin-deformed. Who would want to miss out on that?
Well, apparently most of us do.
We turn around and tell God that it’s alright we can save ourselves. It’s alright, we have the plan to rescue ourselves – after all what good is self-help unless we cannot help ourselves out any and every predicament. If we can reach the moon, if we can travel great distances in short durations, if we can narrow the expanse of the globe through digital communications, then surely there is nothing beyond us. We can work it out. We don’t need Jesus to do it for us.
And in so doing – in such a bid to preserve ourselves we perpetuate the very same damaging, life-diminishing traits that can only lead to death. It can only lead to death, because at its root it is not based in the source of life. With a form that has been corrupted and distorted from the way of life, there is such a basic outcry to get reconnected, that anything else just will not satisfy.
What does Jesus say about the road to re-connection – it is about letting go, it is about denying self, it is about death to self, it is about the way of Christ where loving others is a sacrificial matter.
It is a reality that we struggle with, even as believers, it is a reality, however that can liberate us to be like Christ as nothing else can as we learn to die to live.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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