"Finding Life by Losing All"
Sep.29/02 Mt.16:21-28
Little "E", Big Error
One day this past week the business commentator on CBC radio was reporting on the auction in Texas of items from the building that housed the now-infamous Enron headquarters. The five-foot-tall stainless-steel letter "E" from beside the building fetched $44,000 (U.S.) for those handling disposal of the company's assets. The symbol of a once-great corporation had become sought after, not because of the company's honour, but because of the scandal that sprang from its corrupt accounting practices. Apparently there were few bargains at the auction; prices of items were actually driven up by association with the illegal dealings! Such is our twisted human appraisal of worldly goods, ascribing worth not to the honourable but the scandalous.
The symbol of Christianity is not an "E" as for Enron, but a cross. Jesus calls us who would follow him to take up this symbol in our lives, worth much more than $40,000, worth laying down our whole life for. In fact Jesus claims the only way we'll find what's really worth living for is to leave behind everything -- to lose ourselves for Him; then we'll experience reward that goes beyond anything this life can offer.
Going with Jesus Requires Driving Your Own Hearse
This passage in Matthew 16 unfolds like a bad news / good news kind of story. The bad news is that becoming a follower of Jesus means being prepared to start driving your own hearse. That sounds pretty gloomy, but let's look closely at these verses.
As we saw last week, Peter had just clued in (with God's help) to the fact that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah of Israel, the "Anointed One" or Christ. Jesus warned them not to tell anyone, probably because no one understood what God's plans for the Messiah were and it would start a premature political uprising. In verse 21 Jesus begins to unfold what the next six months are going to bring: his final journey to Jerusalem where he would suffer at the hands of the authorities, be killed, and raised to life. Peter immediately reacts by insisting this couldn't happen to Jesus, but the Lord replies as if Satan himself has gotten into Peter with that line of thinking: this disciple who just minutes earlier had received a marvelous insight from heaven is now exhibiting a purely human outlook, not God's.
Much moralistic man-made religion would agree with Peter that suffering should not be the fate of a perfect person. Think of the standard lines parents tells their children: "be good and you won't get hurt"; "honesty is the best policy"; "do what's right and you'll get ahead". However true these statements are in theory, sooner or later in life we begin to experience that they're not universally accurate. In our competitive, everyone-for-themself world, nice people do get hurt and finish last. We wonder, what went wrong?
Peter was operating from what theologians call the "Deuteronomic" point of view, based on the verses in Deuteronomy that promise blessing for obedience to God's law, and threaten curses for disobedience. From this basis, popular Jewish thought jumped to the conclusion that if an individual was suffering, they must have done something wrong to deserve it. Justice had to be served in this life. That was the approach of "Job's comforters" as the grieving man sat suffering in the ash heap from his painful boils - "C'mon, man, admit it, you must've done something wrong to deserve all this!" So Peter found it inconceivable that someone as perfect and sinless as His Master should somehow suffer premature death.
Heroes get to live "happily ever after" in fairy tales and Hollywood movies, but not always in real life, not in this fallen, sin-crippled web of hurting, self-protective people. And that's the real world of broken humans Jesus came to save. So the Master launches into a few verses of eye-opening teaching that connect His own redemptive suffering on our behalf to the suffering that awaits those who choose to accompany Him on the Christian journey. Verse 24: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Stark stuff!
The impact of this statement is lost on us who've grown use to seeing smooth wooden or silver crosses as ornaments decorating church buildings, jewelry, and so on. The cross was a torturer's instrument of execution, much worse than a gallows or electric chair. The disciples were used to seeing crosses in that context: the Romans crucified the worst criminals. And it wasn't done in a back room or out of the way place, but for everyone to see as a deterrent. You'd come to a main intersection of two roads, and there instead of billboards would be the most recently-captured offenders impaled and writhing up and down on these posts, sometimes for days until they died. In fact before the crucifixion there was a procession or parade during which the convicts would drag the cross-timbers through town out to the place of execution.
It must have made the disciples' jaws drop to hear the way Jesus expressed His expectation of His followers. Today in Canada we don't even have capital punishment, much less parades beforehand. But we do have another kind of deathly procession: the funeral procession out to the cemetery. So perhaps we can think about it as Jesus calling us to be ready to get in and drive our own hearse. Hearse means coffin means death!
Most of you have not had the experience of driving in the "lead car" first in line ahead of the hearse. When officiating at a funeral, I often get that privilege; it can be an impressive experience, driving through highways or towns, stopping traffic, seeing it pull over to the side of the road to make way. It would be easy to forget and start thinking they're pulling over for me - what an honour! But really they're doing it because of the one in the hearse. It's the fact of the death, the loss of a living breathing person, that gives the procession its special dignity.
Translating this into spiritual terms: If we want the privilege of riding in the "lead car" with Jesus in His glory, we need to be ready to get in the hearse today - to lay aside all our plans in life, our desires and claims, even what most would consider "rights" - to die to self in order to live with Him. Jesus calls us to give up everything, our creaturely agenda and comforts, if we want the privilege of being associated with Him.
As the convicts were "taking up their cross" to parade through the streets, likely they were subjected to stares and contempt from bystanders as they made their way along, if not outright abuse and ridicule. That a different element than a dignified funeral procession. Maybe some of us can remember back to when Grade 9s were made to suffer humiliating "initiation" rites upon entering high school. For some, it began before even getting to school: on the bus kids were made to get on their hands and knees and roll eggs with their noses to the back of the bus. Imagine all the onlookers laughing and jeering, tormenting these "punk" Grade 9s. One time in his first year of college one of my brothers came back from a class and found his room had been "creamed": someone had placed a large envelope filled with shaving cream on the floor outside his door with the open mouth of the envelope in the crack underneath the door, then jumped on it. This sent gobs of shaving cream flying all over his room, discolouring his clothes and other articles. And that was just a prank because he was a frosh! At times like that, there's not a thing you can do: it seems the whole order of things is stacked against you, designed to make you miserable. Jesus is saying, if we want to come with Him, we're going to be seen as different, targets for ridicule or enemy attack, and we'd better be prepared for a rough ride.
The apostles made it clear that the Christian calling is no walk in the park. Paul said we must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God (Ac.14:22); "everyone who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2Tim.3:12). With all his imprisonments and rejections, he said in Colossians 1(24), "I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church." The early church did not have it easy.
Life is Found in Losing it for our Loving Lord
"Take up your cross" sounds like bad news. But our Saviour does follow it right away with Good News. Verse 25: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." He who triumphed over sin and death is promising us that, although we've got to get in and drive our own hearse, the good news is that the hearse is the last vehicle we'll ever need! In the resurrection body (which we'll share), Jesus travelled through time and space, into rooms with barred doors and vanishing into thin air, in a spiritually-embodied mode of existence that blows our minds!
And there's more to this promise than just "pie in the sky by and by". Eternal life is a quality of life that begins right now, the moment we place our trust in Jesus and receive His Holy Spirit to be our guide. When we lay down all claims and self-interest, when we say goodbye to our strongest cravings for earthly ease, comfort, reputation, and stardom - then the Lord can usher us into a new style of life that's open to the wonders and gifting a loving supernatural Father has in store for His children. As the Life Application Bible notes, "Real discipleship implies real commitment - pledging our whole existence to His service. If we try to save our physical life from death, pain, or discomfort, we may rick losing our true eternal life. If we protect ourselves from pain, we begin to die spiritually and emotionally. Our lives turn inward, and we lose our intended purpose. When we give our lives in service to Christ, however, we discover the real purpose of living."
Jesus pointed out, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it." This month's Reader's Digest has an interesting article on Saddam Hussein. Here's someone trying desperately to save their own life, to be head of a country (or more than one) for as long as possible. But what kind of life is it? Saddam came to power by a bloody coup in 1979. The article estimates some 3000 people were executed to establish his regime in the early 80s. In 1988, Hussein inflicted chemical warfare on a Kurdish village in his own country. These days, at age 65, his public appearances are carefully limited because he doesn't want to be seen as having grey hair, using reading glasses in public, or walking with a limp from his bad back. For security reasons he works in a different office each day and sleeps in a different bed each night, at varying times, because predictability is dangerous to a dictator. He's trying hard to save his life - but is this living? The article concludes, "A loner by nature, power has isolated him further. Walled in by palaces and ministers who rarely tell him what he doesn't wish to hear, he has become ignorant of his land and his people. He exists only to preserve his wealth and power. Survival is his overriding passion." Not only has trying to save his life cut Saddam off from the land of the living, his striving for power has cost many others their lives, and had negative effects beyond his own country.
Jesus continued (26), "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" You've heard the expression that someone "climbed to the top of the ladder only to find it leaning against the wrong wall"! Why do we envy and struggle and compete and develop ulcers and shortchange our families to gain what someday is all going to pass away? Life is short: guard what's most valuable, your relationships - with God and others. The Life Application Bible comments, "When we don't know Christ, we make choices as though this life were all we have. In reality, this life is just the introduction to eternity. How we live this brief span, however, determines our eternal state. What we accumulate on earth has no value in purchasing eternal life. Even the highest social or civic honours cannot earn us entrance into heaven. Evaluate all that happens from an eternal perspective, and you will find your values and decisions changing."
Jesus urges us to live life, not for earthly gain, but for Him: "whoever loses His life for me will find it." This is what changes the message of the cross for disciples from one of self-denial ("don't do this, don't do that") to fulfillment, finding our real identity as God's son or daughter in the better path Christ reveals. Read this passage the wrong way and you risk coming away thinking God is a kill-joy, out to take away your fun. That's a bad caricature of living in Christ. (like the satire "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", where the monks walk around chanting "Lord, give us what we need" and bopping themselves on the head with a board!) Jesus didn't intend the Christian walk to be accompanied by a perpetual long face, like a sad-sack. He talked about coming so we might have life abundant, springs of living water flowing from within us, finding rest and a burden that's light, discovering His joy released right inside us (Jn.10:10; 7:38; Mt.11:30; Jn.15:11). Discipleship is less about self-denial than it is about opting for God's best. Hebrews 12(2) says that Jesus "for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame". Note the "FOR". He could put up with the torture because He was focused on something better - pleasing the Father, sharing in God's plan. So Peter urges Christians (1Pet.4:1f), "Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God." Paul explained to the elders from Ephesus why he was still headed for Jerusalem in spite of threats to his well-being: "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me— the task of testifying to the gospel [that's good news!] of God’s grace." (Acts 20:24)
Paul was conscious of the reward Jesus would be giving him when He comes in glory (Mt.16:27). Jesus wants us to get the big picture on eternity, not be short-sighted, only taking this life into consideration. We can hold off on this life's counterfeits knowing that God has something much better for us: His Spirit inside, and blessings in eternity. Martyred missionary Jim Elliott said something like this: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." (repeat) Now there's the way to invest your life!
The Bottom Line
Some businesses have learned to take a higher path than the shortcuts of Enron, now being dismantled. Thomas Caldwell is founder and chair of Caldwell Securities, one of Canada's larger private investment firms. He became a Christian as a result of a friend inviting him to a Bible study for business people, and has been involved in churches in Toronto and Niagara-on-the-Lake for many years. Though well acquainted with what the world calls "security", Thomas takes the risk to live for Christ, not the dollar, in the workplace. In April he was one of 9 Canadians recognized by Maclean's magazine as "being committed to practising their religion not just on religious holidays, but in their daily lives".
For example, Caldwell tries to structure his business according to biblical principles and wants to model honesty and accountability with his clients and staff. ChristianWeek reports, "If my walk and my talk aren't consistent, I want someone to come up and tell me," he says, recalling a time when a deal went wrong and he was in a foul mood. "I was ranting and raving and one of my staff said that didn't seem to be an appropriate way for a Christian to respond," he says. "He was right." Wow - the big boss accepting critique from an employee - that's interesting!
Caldwell says, "There's a revival in the business world, but the churches are missing it." For his part, though, he co-chairs the downtown King-Bay chaplaincy, where some of the many Bible studies that are held every week in the Toronto business community take place.
Losing your life for Jesus will entail saying "no" to some things. Caldwell's firm won't invest in alcohol, tobacco, or gambling companies. Caldwell made that decision a few years ago when 5 of his acquaintances in the securities business took their own lives. He says, "Booze was part of four of the deaths, so I don't want to be in those businesses."
Caldwell is following Christ by speaking out in the business community. He's the lead-off speaker at a Mennonite Economic Development Associates convention in a few weeks titled "Business as a Calling". He says, "It's too easy to say that Enron was the problem. This isn't just Enron. It is way beyond Enron. Enron is a symptom of a wider problem in our whole society, where we are experiencing a general breakdown in morals and values." Earlier this year Caldwell bought full-page ads in 3 major Canadian newspapers to tell corporate Canada that it is time to restore integrity to business. The ads concluded with the challenge: "The master should be servant to all." Doesn't that sound like something Jesus would say? Radical, dude!
And what does this founder and chair of one of our country's largest private investment firms consider the bottom line? The almighty dollar? Getting your corporate symbol up there on a skyscraper like Enron's "E"? Not at all! Caldwell has an eternal picture in view, one that goes beyond gaining this world. In his own words: "The bottom line is that we need to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others. The most effective way to do this is one-on-one, and one of the best places to do that is at work."
Do something death-defying... Live for Jesus, follow Him right into your daily life, and find your life in Him. Let's pray.