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Tag: cross

Courage in the Place of Our Death

March 23, 2016 /

tangled vine

On February 29 of this year, Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Edward C. Byers Jr. was awarded our military’s highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor, having already been awarded the Bronze Start five times for bravery and the purple heart twice for being wounded in combat. Here is just a portion of the text of his commendation:

Chief Byers, completely aware of the imminent threat, fearlessly rushed into the room and engaged an enemy guard aiming an AK-47 at him. He then tackled another adult male who had darted towards the corner of the room. During the ensuing hand-to-hand struggle, Chief Byers confirmed the man was not the hostage and engaged him. As other rescue team members called out to the hostage, Chief Byers heard a voice respond in English and raced toward it. He jumped atop the American hostage and shielded him from the high volume of fire within the small room. While covering the hostage with his body, Chief Byers immobilized another guard with his bare hands, and restrained the guard . . .His bold and decisive actions under fire saved the lives of the hostage and several of his teammates. By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of near certain death, Chief Petty Officer Byers reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

During most of the hours of our days there is little opportunity to be either a coward or a hero. We eat our meals, do our work, chat with friends and passing strangers. Nothing significant really happens. John Eldridge says that every man is haunted by the question, “Do I have what it takes?” We wonder if we would have the courage to stand-up if the need were to arise. I think it is one the reasons action movies and combat video games are so popular with men. it allows us to live vicariously a life our soul tell us we could never live.

Rarely in life do we have moments of true courage. Rarely are we called to sacrifice ourselves for something that could truly cost us.

At the cross, we are confronted. The cross is the place of our redemption but it is also the place of our undoing. At the cross, we are confronted with the question “Do you have the courage to be changed?”

At the cross, all are welcomed as they are, where they are. But at the cross none are allowed to stay as they are, where they are. Everyone is expected to change. Everyone is presented with the option to change and asked if they have the courage to do so.

On the day of Jesus’ death a man named Joseph of Arimathea was confronted by the cross. He had been a secret follower of Jesus but now he was challenged to come out of the shadows. It is easy to be a follower of Jesus when the crowds are chanting “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” It is quite another to come forward and risk everything for a dead man and lost dream.

Joseph was a prominent man in the community. A wealthy, successful man who had been elected to the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish ruling body. The easiest thing for him to do was to remain in the shadows, no one had to know he had ever hoped in this man. But the cross confronted him to come out. Joseph was needed to take courage and come before Pilate and ask for Jesus’ body. Joseph was needed to take courage bury the body of Jesus in the tomb that had been prepared for Joseph.

There is an irony to this story. Into the place of Joseph’s death he placed the Lord of Life and by doing so Joseph received life. What seemed like a step that stood the chance of costing him everything actually gave him more than he could have hoped for. But first, he had to have the courage to come out of the shadows and allow life to enter his place of death.

Each of us have places of death in our life. Areas of darkness no one is allowed to see. Areas prepared for our death and undoing. Areas we will never voluntarily go. It is to these areas the cross calls us to take courage. Will we have the courage to put the Lord of Life into these places? We know something that Joseph could not have known that day: The impossible promise of resurrection and life, if we will allow Jesus into our place of death.

Will you do it? It will take more courage than you ever thought you had.

Stephen

 

 

 

Giving credit where it is due:
The concept for this series of blog posts and its accompanying sermon series draw from the masterful work, Seven Words to the Cross: A Lenten Study for Adults by J. Ellsworth Kalas.

An incomplete testimony

March 15, 2016 /

roman soldier head

Perhaps only one person was with Jesus through the last fifteen or sixteen hours of his life. It was not his mother, Mary, nor was it one of his disciples. The one person who accompanied Jesus through the closing hours of his life was someone who didn’t choose to be there. He was there on assignment. There because it was his duty to be there. He was a Roman soldier, a centurion.

We know very little about the man who would accompany Jesus the last hours of life. We do not know his name, age, whether he had a family or not. We very little, but there are still things we can extrapolate from his title.

Centurions were the backbone of the Roman army. Given charge of approximately 100 men, it was their duty to keep the peace in their assigned region. A centurion had to be able to lead and think quickly. This was in an age long before advanced communication systems giving commanders the ability to communicate to the battlefield. When a centurion was dispatched he had to be trusted to carry out his assignment and make decisions on his own. It could be weeks before his commanders would know if he carried out his duty

The centurion had battle experience. He was a man acquainted with death. He had seen men die on the battlefield. Taken the life of many himself. He had witnessed many men die by execution. Death was not a novelty for him. That would have long ago worn off. Now death was a duty to be carried out.

I believe we can also extrapolate even further about this man by virtue of the location of his assignment. Jerusalem was a tough city to lead in. It was a complicated city with a complicated relationship between its religious communities and the government. Not much has changed today. It was a city that seemed to always be on the verge of an uprising. It would take special skill to lead an occupying army in such a place.

Why do I say all this about this man? To help us see that he was not a man prone to rash judgements. He was a man of character and experience. He was a man who did his work and did his duty many times.

On this day, it was his duty that leads him to take a detachment of soldiers to accompany Jesus the final hours of his life. This was no ordinary prisoner, this was a man who really had no reason to be a prisoner at all. But it was not his duty to question he had a job to do. He would take him to the religious leaders, the house of Caiaphas, the high priest. Witness the spectacle of witnesses being paraded by as they attempted to find a charge worthy of death. He would take Jesus to Pilate then to Herod and then back to Pilate again. The whole time witnessing the strange scenes of questioning and trial.

There at the cross, posting a guard, he would witness one man dying as so many before had. Cursing everyone and everything around him. He would see another who would begin as expected but then somewhere in the day something would change for this man. He would hear the extraordinary conversation between Jesus and this other man. “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Then there was the man Jesus himself. No one had ever died like this before. In response to the taunting of the crowds, he would pray for forgiveness. When Jesus would say “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” would there be an unease in the centurion’s own soul? Could Jesus be meaning him as well? But what reason could he need forgiveness? He had done nothing wrong, he had only done his duty. No man had ever died like this before.

Then the moment of death would come. In a loud voice, Jesus would cry out and then lay back his head and die. Die as though one who commanded death. Die as one was just laying back his head to go to sleep. John records the words Jesus cried out, “It is finished.” No man had ever died like this before.

Witnessing all of this the centurion would exclaim, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” Matthew records that these words were spoken in fear by the centurion.

These were words of truth and yet incomplete words. This was a centurion, a soldier, a Roman official. He was no Jewish theologian or Christ follower. His testimony would not have meant the same had to come from the lips of the Peter, James or John. Certainly not what it would have meant if they had been spoken by the High Priest. It was an incomplete testimony.

But in a sense, all of this is beside the point. No two persons have every called Jesus the Son of God and have said it the same way or with the same meaning. Each of us comes to God by his or her own path. No one ever speaks the confession perfectly, from an objective point of view. Each of us speaks through the lens of our own experience and life. But it makes the confession no less real.

Paul says to us in Romans, “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

What does it mean to confess Jesus as Lord? None of us know fully what those words mean. None of us could fully comprehend what it means for our lives to make such a confession. It is an incomplete confession but it is no less real.

But one thing surely is true. If you come to the cross and in your soul hear the great shout of victory, “It is finished” you must respond to it. Whether fully understanding or incomplete we can all say “Truly this man was God’s Son.”

Stephen

 

 

Giving credit where it is due:
The concept for this series of blog posts and its accompanying sermon series draw from the masterful work, Seven Words to the Cross: A Lenten Study for Adults by J. Ellsworth Kalas.

An unlikely person of faith

March 8, 2016 /

three crosses at sunrise

Faith sometimes comes in unlikely places, in unlikely ways, in unlikely people. No person in history may have had a more unlikely experience of faith than the man who hung on the cross beside Jesus. Suffering his own just punishment, as he would describe it, he would be the first to see Jesus’ death on the cross as something more than a great hopeless tragedy. The Roman Centurion would witness Jesus’ death and declare, “Surely this man was the Son of God” but there is no indication his statement was anything more than observing a tragic loss or that had any future significance for the life of the centurion.

Peter had at one time declared of Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” but he was nowhere to be found on this day having fled with the other disciples. No, the first man to see Jesus’ death as victory would be the man hanging beside him. In simple, incredible words he would make his request of Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” In response to this man’s incredible faith, he would hear Jesus’ words “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Salvation had come to the man suffering beside Jesus.

What happened to the thief hanging beside Jesus in the next moments? Did anything change for him? In one respect, no. Nothing changed for this man. He still hung on a cross, people still hurled insults at him. Salvation came, but suffering did not end. He was not in that moment lifted from the cross. He did not even experience a quicker, easier death. His body still writhed in pain and as the shadows grew long his legs would still be broken to speed his death. Nothing changed and yet everything changed. This man could know in his heart that his death was not the end. He might say as Paul does in 1 Corinthians, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting” (15:55)?

As Christians, we are often tempted to paint faith as a “Get out of Jail Free Card” on human suffering and trials. While we may not say it so explicitly, we live as though we believe if we only say a little prayer then any problems we might have in this life will be magically taken from us and we will live life in perfect harmony. How do I know this? Because we panic when suffering comes and have a crisis in our faith. Faith doesn’t take away pain. Faith changes the lens through which we see our pain. Faith did not take away the man on the cross’ pain. Faith enabled him to see his pain through the lens of Jesus’ promise to be with him in paradise.

John Wesley would say of early Methodists, “Our people die well.” So did the thief. He died well because he had met the Lord of life. May we not only die well but live well, living life through the lens of the promise that “weeping may remain for a night but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5) for in the morning, Jesus says, you will be with me in paradise.

Blessings,
Stephen

 

 

Giving credit where it is due:
The concept for this series of blog posts and its accompanying sermon series draw from the masterful work, Seven Words to the Cross: A Lenten Study for Adults by J. Ellsworth Kalas.

A Little Vegas at the Cross

March 1, 2016 /

vegas dice

There, at the foot of the cross, while Jesus hung suffering and dying, the soldiers turned the scene into a little Vegas. Gambling away Jesus’ clothes in a game of chance.

What do people do when someone is dying? It isn’t only first-century soldiers that do monstrous things. Sometimes while a mother is dying, the children outside the hospital door are arguing over who will get the china and jewelry. Family members will sometimes place mom or dad in a nursing home, figuring they are never getting out, they are as good as dead, and then strip the home of all the valuables and maybe even go so far as to sell the home and take the assets all while telling mom or dad nothing of their actions. As far as they tell them, everything is as it was when they left and one day, when they get out, they can return to their home. A home in which another person is now living in.

It is not just families that behave this way. We have seen the crowds behave monstrously as well. A city is devastated by a fire, flood or tornado, and people will come into the area to dig through the debris, break into homes and business to take what they can get. They compound the tragedy all the while seemingly oblivious to the suffering that is occurring around them.

When Jesus died on the cross, all of heaven and hell stood still and watched with wonder. Time stood still except for a group of men, gambling away his clothes at the foot of the cross. Jesus had only a few pieces of clothing, but they didn’t wait for him to die. They divided his meager estate amongst themselves and gambled away what could not be divided.

These soldiers were not the only people at the foot of the cross that day. As Jesus writhed in agony, and they gambled away his clothes, close by was Jesus mother. As a parent, I cannot imagine what it would be like to witness the execution of my own child. It is a place my heart and mind cannot go. But there she was at the cross. Suffering. Why couldn’t they have given the tunic to her? The only thing left to hold onto, to remember her son. Wouldn’t you think the soldiers would have shown at least some mercy to Jesus’ mother? This was not her plan for her son to die this way. She had even on one occasion tried to come with Jesus’ brothers and take him home, figuring he was out of his mind. Mary tried to protect her son.

If we had the chance to question these man afterward they likely would have responded with puzzled bewilderment at our offense. They had a duty to be completed and their years of being soldiers made them indifferent to the suffering and agony going on around them. They were practical men. For them, a garment represented several days wages. These were not wealthy men. They were grunt soldiers in the Roman army. For us, we have closets full of clothes and the thought of wearing the clothes of an executed man is repulsive to our senses. But these men had very little. Likely only one or two garments to wear themselves. Clothes were a big financial investment. Even if they couldn’t wear the clothes of Jesus, they could, at least, sell them.

We are not really that different than them. We have all trained our minds to see somethings and to not see others. Most of the time we live our lives with our minds on automatic pilot. Without it, we would go crazy. But what are we missing while we are not seeing? Those soldiers had become conditioned to the filth, agony, and brutality of death on a cross. So much so they could play games at the foot of the cross.

The more we watch violence. We become accustomed to it and we are no longer shocked or disturbed by it. Therefore, to grab our attention video games and television writers have to push further and further the graphically explicit and violent envelope. It is the only way to stand out, the only way to get our attention because we have all seen it before. Playboy magazine no longer has nude models in the magazines. I am going to have to take their word for it. I have never opened the pages of a Playboy magazine and I am certainly not going to start now. But in giving their reason for making the change it was simple. Nudity and sexually charged images have become so common in our society that the pictures in their magazine failed to excite and their subscriptions were dropping off. The prevalence of pornography free available on-line has the product they are selling no longer worth looking at.

It is easy for us to pass judgment on past generations. We wonder how it was that nations could have allowed child labor to take place. How could people have become so immune to the death and mutilation of children in the mills and factories as the industrial revolution swelled? We stand in confusion our a person could sit in church and hear the message of God’s love for all. How could they hear the story of the good Samaritan and then go home to torture their slaves? Or how could people stand by and allow the Holocaust to happen? How could they see the train cars of people and yet not see what was happening?

Sometimes the answer is as simple and as complicated as to say, they acted according to the way they had been conditioned, acted according to the way they had trained their minds to work. How have we trained our minds to see somethings and to not see others? What will future generations look back on us and ask how it was that we could not see the suffering that was right before our eyes? What will they say about our ambivalence to the unborn or say about our growing billionaires on the backs of workers not being paid enough to live on? How have we become indifferent to those around us?

Stephen
Giving credit where it is due:
The concept for this series of blog posts and its accompanying sermon series draw from the masterful work, Seven Words to the Cross: A Lenten Study for Adults by J. Ellsworth Kalas.

He Saved Others

February 23, 2016 /

carved wood crucifix

Dear Friends,

“Two rebels were crucified with [Jesus], one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.” (Matthew 27:39-44, NIV)

Jesus was stripped of everything, his dignity, his friends, his position, and laid out on a cross for all the world to see. Those who wanted him dead had finally won. They had tried to kill him before. One time they picked up stones, but Jesus had slipped away from them Now they finally had him. So why kick him while he is down? Why mock him and taunt him while he writhes in pain taking his final breaths?

We can understand, a little, why the religious leaders do it. They were jealous of him. Jesus had been getting all of the attention. The crowds were swarming to him and the bigger and bigger the crowds became the more Jesus threatened the status quo which kept them in power.

What about the ordinary person who passed by? Why would they be so tempted to hurl insults? They had been the ones welcomed by Jesus. It was for them that Jesus had spent countless hours healing their sick, opening the eyes of the blind, casting out demons, and forgiving their sins. So many who were nothing became something because of Jesus. He saved so many and now they stand at the base of his cross hurling insults.

Maybe it is our animal instinct. There is something primal in all of us that can well up to destroy the one who is down. Something in us resents goodness and excellence. We resent it because it challenges and confronts us. We are so tempted to say we are just the way we are and can do no better. Righteousness is not possible. Having a good marriage is not possible. Living a life of integrity is not possible. But our excuses are shaky in the presence of one who is living such a life. So we take joy when we see them fall. It lets us off the hook. It confirms to us that what we have told ourselves was impossible really is impossible. It is just they way that I am.

As Jesus hung on the cross all the lessons Jesus taught that seemed impossible to follow were lifted from their consciouses. Look, even he couldn’t do it, why should I even try. He saved others but he cannot even save himself. We always knew he was nothing more than a snake oil peddler.

Yet, as the crowds mocked Jesus with stinging words of ridicule words, “He saved others; he cannot save himself” they were unknowingly speaking great words of truth. God demonstrated his power not in coming down from the cross, not in calling down thousands angels to his rescue, but by rather by giving up his own life.

Think about it. To whom do we give medals for bravery and valor? To those who run or to those who stay? To those who save their life or to those who give up their lives that others might live? Congressional Medals of Honor are not given to those who run. They are given to those who show an even greater power: The courage and power to stay and give up one’s life that others might live.

The crowds are right. “He saved others; he cannot save himself” Their words of scorn are words of truth. For in not saving himself he saves others. He took upon himself the scorn of all humanity so that we might be saved.

Just as the men on the crosses beside Jesus would say, they were getting what they deserved. We each deserved to be on the cross. To be stripped of all of our dignity, position, and identity and to face the scorn and ridicule of all of creation.

He saved others; he cannot save himself. Christ chose to not be saved that we might be saved.

Blessings,
Stephen

 

Giving credit where it is due:
The concept for this series of blog posts and its accompanying sermon series draw from the masterful work, Seven Words to the Cross: A Lenten Study for Adults by J. Ellsworth Kalas.

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