Dying to Live

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12.24)

Easter expects us to believe the most supernatural event ever recorded in history. A man is tortured within an inch of his life and nailed to a cross, where he’s exposed to the elements for nine hours, bleeds out, and eventually suffocates beneath the pressure of his weight. His body is rushed into a borrowed crypt, with a massive stone and two guards placed at its entrance to prevent grave robbers from stealing his corpse. (There’s some wild talk predicting he’ll rise from the dead. So it’s best all around to ensure his burial site isn’t tampered with.) Two days later, his friends return to check on the grave and discover the stone has been moved and his body is missing. That’s when they learn that he has indeed come back to life and freed himself from the grave—an amazing feat for a man of uncommon physical strength, let alone someone whose body has been ravaged and who was undeniably dead.

That’s the story and if we’re to believe in the power of Christ in our lives and the world, we have to believe that’s what happened. We can puzzle out all sorts of alternative scenarios. Yet none of them satisfy. Maybe Jesus never died; maybe He lapsed into a coma and His disciples assumed He was dead. But if He was buried alive, how could someone in His condition muster the strength to push back the enormous tombstone? Maybe He was dead and His followers managed to abscond with His corpse. Then how do we explain the random sightings that occur in the weeks after His resurrection? Maybe the whole thing was a hoax. Then how do we explain why this myth has survived two millennia? On some level, this story was, is, and will always remain very real. And for us to benefit from all that it represents, we must retire our logical skepticism and accept its supernatural mysteries by faith.

What’s most interesting is that, six days prior to His death, Jesus explains the mechanics of His resurrection in the most mundane natural terms. He compares the process to a planting cycle. A wheat grain is buried in the ground, where it dies, and resurges to abundant life that produces more grain, which in turn will be buried, die, and yield even more life. In this context, the Resurrection is the most natural occurrence known to humankind. Although we don’t understand the actual phenomenon, the concept of dying to live is one we encounter every day. It’s what puts food on our tables, fills our gardens with beauty, and provides shelter in the shade of vast trees and lumber we use to build our homes.

As we anticipate tomorrow’s Easter celebrations, we listen closely to Jesus’s explanation, because He expands His story to include us. We carry in us the seeds of His resurrection. We are the fruit born from His death. And we must also die so that we too can bear fruit. How does this work? We can’t really say. All we know is it happens in us just as surely as one wheat stalk yields hundreds of grains that are sown into the ground, die, and resurge into new life that produces exponentially more grain.

It is the most natural process we know. Yet it is also the most supernatural transformation we can possibly experience. Our faith is perpetuated by willingness to release ourselves from the fear of death and all that it triggers: hatred, competitiveness, insecurity, materialism, and every other life-limiting woe we cling to in hopes of survival. We arrive at the empty tomb, astounded by its miracle, while also realizing the very thing that perplexes us is at work in us. We are dying to live. The resurrection phenomenon doesn’t end with Jesus at Easter. It resurfaces every day in our lives, in every moment when we refute the fear of death by placing love for others alongside love of self and love for God—the Creator Who ordained this astonishing life-death-life cycle—above all.

Shadows Fall

What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1.4-5)

The first time I attended our church’s Maundy Thursday service, I was completely unprepared for the emotional wallop it delivered. By the time it ended and I made my way to the street, I was in shock. I couldn’t describe the feelings that surged in and around me. And I wasn’t alone. As we stood on the corner, waiting for the light to change, members of our congregation searched one another’s faces, as if to say, “What just happened in there?” Now that I’ve been to the service several times, my initial sense of being overwhelmed has eased. But the extraordinary feelings of loss remain, and exiting the service still puts me in an uncomfortable state akin to suspended animation.

They have taken Jesus away, and His absence turns the world into a cold, dark, and distressingly hollow place.

The service is commonly known as Tenebrae, its name drawn from Latin for “shadows” or “darkness.” The liturgy is simple: hymns and music commemorate Jesus’s last night with the disciples while a series of readings revisit the events of that fateful evening. The sanctuary is candlelit and with each reading, another light is taken away, so that the church slowly descends into darkness.

We gather around the table, just as Jesus did with His disciples, and we remember Him in the cup and the bread, just as He commanded. Yet the encircling gloom heightens our awareness that this is part of something much darker than we want to admit. Almost unconsciously, we slip into the disciples’ mindset and emotions. We hear the same Communion service that, on the first Sunday morning of every month, beckons us to “share in the Lord’s death until He comes.” But the gravity of this particular night is nearly suffocating. This is the last supper. The disciples will never again break bread with Jesus in His mortal life. When He washes their feet and takes their hands, they will feel their last touch of His earthly flesh. When they go with Him to Gethsemane, it will be the last time they pray together. (And their inability to stay awake will haunt them forever.)

As the sanctuary grows dimmer, our spirits grow heavier. The final hymn is sung, the last passage read, and then comes the final blow. With a single candle flickering on the altar—in stubborn hope—the pastors and elders systematically remove any sign of Jesus from the sanctuary. The communion set is taken away. The cross comes down. The altar dressings are struck. The oversized pulpit Bible is removed. We sit in silence, watching symbols of our faith—and Christ’s presence among us—vanish into the night. The grief is palpable.

There is no benediction. Before the sanctuary is stripped and left to slumber in the shadows, the pastor tells us we’re free to leave after the last item is removed. No one rushes out the door. You sit there, numb, confused, and straining to remember that, in three days, this dark and lonely place will explode in victorious life. All that’s been taken away will be returned, and with it there will be banners and flowers and vibrant anthems of hope and faithfulness and joy.

They have taken our Lord. Shadows thicken and sorrow overwhelms. An aching hollowness carves itself into the marrow of our souls. They have taken our Lord. But they have not defeated our God. Death is no match for this great God of love and power.

Don’t fight the darkness. Let it descend. Go there—into that land of shadow and feel how empty the world becomes when Jesus is taken from it. But know the story doesn’t end in the dark.

What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it — John 1.4-5

The shadows may fall. But our Savior will rise. 

Baby Snatchers

There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast, and take as a pledge the infant of the poor… From the city the dying groan, and the throat of the wounded cries for help; yet God pays no attention to their prayer. (Job 24.9,12)

Dedicated to the memory of hundreds of murdered children and those who loved them.

During Advent our pastor asked a question that has haunted me ever since. “Can we continue to idolize violence and still believe the Gospel’s message of love?” She paused to scan the congregation. With a catch in her throat that fueled the fire of her insistence, she said, “The answer just has to be, ‘No!’” By idolizing violence, she meant faith in hostility and death over love’s decisive power to sustain life. This violence runs much deeper than movie mayhem and gangsta rap. It drills down into the marrow of our social and spiritual beings.

We participate in a culture that places nearly all of its confidence in aggression and retaliation. It’s not enough to resolve our differences in a loving, peaceful manner—in part, because doing so requires tremendous effort and sacrifice on all sides. No, we opt for the inferior alternative: settling scores. This compulsion takes root long before we reach for physical weapons. It’s the product of low biology—what the New Testament calls “the flesh”—that obsesses about survival and perceives every life challenge as a potential threat. Darwin optimistically framed this instinct as “survival of the fittest.” But, at its core, it’s a kill-or-be-killed mentality that goads us to take preemptive strikes and meet violence with violence. Thus, violence is an attitudinal issue that, if unchecked, becomes a behavioral problem. Its primary weapons are hearts and minds; fists, guns, knives, and—most commonly—words are merely hardware.

Violence always carries hidden costs that ultimately discredit its effectiveness. Years may pass before the bill comes due. But the instant our hearts and minds turn to violence—whether physical, verbal, emotional, or spiritual—the invoice is in the mail and it will arrive bearing interest. And violence doesn’t care who pays the tab, as long as it’s paid. So when excess pride in our children causes us to instill in them a ferocious competitive streak, we shouldn’t be surprised when its attendant anxiety and selfishness erupt in rage. When paranoia about safety and loss of “what’s ours” compels us to attack others, we shouldn’t be perplexed when we become targets of hostility. When fear of losing respect breeds disrespect for others, we shouldn’t be shocked when what we’re determined to preserve evaporates. Faith in violence doesn’t just look ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

Because violence can’t coexist with love, it provides no brakes to stop our slide down the slippery slope. The gaps between “venting” and berating, “defending” and bullying, “winning” and humiliating are not as wide as we imagine. If we listened more closely to how we talk, we’d get this. We talk about “letting people have it” and “crushing the competition” and “butting heads.” Even when we’re on the losing side, we glorify the violence we suffer, saying we’re “floored” by what was said to us, or “blown away” by another’s actions. Kids and sports fans have a term for our use of violent speech—“talking smack,” which gets to the nub of the issue. Saying leads to doing, and with so much of our language devoted to violence how can we not admit to its prominence on the altars of our hearts?

Giving violence different names or redefining it to highlight its extremes won’t remove its place of idolatry. When violence becomes the thing we rely on for protection and the thing we most fear, it is our god. What else but a god could persuade us to wage war in the name of peace, to assert the sanctity of our land by invading and occupying another, to exhibit self-worth by diminishing the value and rights of others? These are not instinctive responses to fear and threat; they’re conscious acts that constitute wholehearted worship of violence. And don’t be deceived: this god is a filthy liar. Nothing it promises ever pans out.

In the 24^th chapter of Job—which some scholars believe is the Bible’s oldest volume—the hero’s complaint about the violence of his day reads like our daily news. Evildoers scam widows out of their property. Poor parents scavenge to feed their children, while thugs seize fields and vineyards. (Job’s loathing for this crowd is so vehement that he accuses them of not having enough sense to come in out of the rain.) Murderers kill the poor and defenseless. Women are routinely abused. And several times, Job’s focus turns to children born into a world consumed by violence. “There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast, and take as a pledge the infant of the poor,” verse 9 says. These baby snatchers place no value in human life. Nor do they bow to the God of love. The violence they worship deadens their senses to the agonies they cause. “From the city the dying groan, and the throat of the wounded cries for help,” Job tells us. “Yet God pays no attention to their prayer.”

That last sentence troubles us, as it should. It certainly vexes Job. The entire chapter begs the question, “Why would God allow this?” It’s the same question we ask when reading reports of children gunned down in drive-by shootings and we’re gripped with grief by grade-school massacres. Where is God? The answer may be simpler, and closer to home, than we think. We’ve replaced the God of love with the god of violence. In Matthew 6.24, Jesus explains, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” A society—including its religious right—that looks to violence to solve its problems has cast God from its presence. Before God can intervene, idolatry of violence has to be torn down. Then the love of God will return and that, in and of itself, will be the answer to our prayers.

Holy Week starts early for me this year, as Walt and I and members of our church join thousands of Chicagoans for tonight’s CROSSwalk, a sacred processional honoring the memory of over 800 young humans sacrificed to violence since 2008. Although the demonstration will be peaceful, it is intended to confront the idolatry of violence that plagues our city with baby snatchers, abusers, murderers, and war-makers. It is a fitting start to Lent’s closing act, when God’s love will challenge violence’s power and rise from death in decisive triumph.

This evening, as we hear the names of our lost called out—as we ponder the horrors of homicide and baby-snatching—we’ll want to ask, “Where is God?” But the answer to that won’t satisfy, because it’s the wrong question. With repentant hearts, we need to ask, “Can we continue to idolize violence and still believe the Gospel’s message of love?”

The answer just has to be, “No!”

First

God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8)

As Lent beckons us to Calvary and our thoughts turn toward the cross, I’m reminded of the hymn that says, “Oh, how I love Jesus/Because He first loved me.” Of all the facets of divine grace exemplified on the cross, the realization that God loved us first is the most dazzling for me. It is a decisive love, a love offered in hopes that it will be returned. But we can never forget that Jesus decides to die a criminal’s death with no promise that His love for humanity will be rewarded. It’s more than a selfless act of compassion. It’s a huge gamble—the most extreme risk a person can take—which makes it the ultimate act of faith.

And we should remember that this sacrifice is not without hesitation. Moments before He’s arrested, Jesus begs God to release Him from this fate. Because we’re governed by flesh, we interpret His prayer to be a plea to save His own skin. Like every human living under Roman oppression, Jesus has seen the horrors of imperial torture and crucifixion. In Jerusalem, Calvary is the site for frequent executions. As with other cities where potential for insurrection is high, the Romans select a spot at the edge of town to erect a grisly display of supreme authority. The crosses of Calvary stand as a warning to anyone traveling to and from the city: there is no mercy for anyone who bucks the system. Jesus knows well what torments await Him after He’s taken into custody. Then, because we know how gruesome His death is, we put two and two together and assume Jesus is asking God to spare Him from the extreme brutality He will suffer.

But might there be more to Jesus’s hesitance than escaping agony? One has to imagine a bigger question looms in His mind. Will dying be worth it? The mortification of an unjust trial, public mockery, being whipped within an inch of His life, and then hoisted onto a cross is supposed to result in our awakening to God’s boundless love. Yet there are no guarantees this will be the case. Given how much derision He’s faced in life, the odds don’t favor such an eventuality. It’s more likely He’ll die and be forgot, like every other troublemaker who meets his end at Calvary. Crucifixions happen all the time. Why should Jesus’s be any different? “Take this cup away from Me,” He prays—as if to say, “Don’t put Me through this for no reason.” It’s a huge gamble.

Jesus’s great assent—“Not My will, but Yours be done”—is more than accepting the price He will pay in His flesh. It’s the acknowledgement of what must be done to prove that God loved us first. The reconciliation at the heart of God’s redemptive plan starts with love and proceeds without any assurance it will be repaid. And the physical agony that Jesus endures cannot begin to equal the mental anguish rising from the possibility it could all be for naught. That is the miracle of the cross. Jesus’s faith in God—even in the terrifying moments when He feels God has abandoned Him to die alone—is matched by God’s unfailing faith in us. To love us without any certainty we will return God’s love, it is more than the human heart and mind can comprehend.

God loved us first. It is almost unimaginable. Yet it is true. And the grandeur of such extreme love becomes the centerpiece of Paul’s attempt to awaken us to this amazing fact: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5.6-8)

As we approach Holy Week, may awareness that God loved us first overtake us. We’re moving toward a moment when we will discover love of unmatched magnificence and trust. The greatest love we can ever know is waiting for us at the cross. But as the Savior comes into view, let’s not forget that God waits faithfully for our love to flow upward. May our song forever be, “Oh, how I love Jesus. Because He first loved me.”

Most of All

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death. (Philippians 3.8)

Center of Everything

If our lives were bookshelves, where would the volume called My Faith be? Would it stand on such a tall shelf that retrieving it requires too much effort? Would it get tucked between other familiar titles—My Family, My Job, What I Do for Fun—where it competes for our attention and often is jostled out of the way as we reach for something else? Would it be somewhere in all of these stories of our lives, yet it would take some looking to find it? Would it be stacked nearby, in the pile of books we intend to thumb through when we find the time?

Or would My Faith rest at the center of everything, easily within reach, its covers barely able to contain pages swollen from overuse, the copy smeared from constant highlighting, the margins tattooed with notes and question marks and exclamation points? Would it be so vital to everything we do that it never makes it to the bookshelf at all? Is it the one book we carry with us at all times, no matter where we go or what we do?

Sunday’s New Testament selections (John 12.1-8; Philippians 3.4-14) portray two people whose editions of My Faith are veritable forces that propel their lives. In John, we see Mary, the sister of Jesus’s close friend, Lazarus, do something that seems utterly senseless, yet makes perfect sense. In Philippians, we hear Paul explain his approach to life. Again, what he says sounds illogical. But his reasoning is solid.

Most Peculiar

Mary’s story is remembered for several reasons: her extravagant behavior, which comes out of nowhere; Judas’s exaggerated outrage, which camouflages ulterior motives; and Jesus’s defense of Mary, which, if we misread it, is somewhat confusing. And the event’s drama is magnified by its setting, a dinner party. Jesus and the disciples are headed for Jerusalem, where—unbeknownst to everyone but Him—their travels will end. They stop at Bethany, a prosperous outlying village, to visit with Lazarus and his sisters. While Martha puts dinner on the table and Lazarus hosts his guests, Mary appears with a pound of nard, a costly perfume made from oil pressed out of the roots of spikenard, a flowering plant from the Valerian family. Nard is primarily used to anoint corpses, as its sedative properties (like those in today’s Valerian root extract) are said to enhance the deceased’s restfulness. Mary empties the nard onto Jesus’s feet and wipes off the excess with her hair. Her actions are alarming on many levels.

Most obvious, of course, is the expensiveness of her gesture—which is what angers Judas. He protests her wastefulness, saying she could have sold the perfume and fed poor people with the proceeds. (The writer of John is skeptical about his motives, however, saying that, as treasurer of Jesus’s ministry, he skimmed donations.) Furthermore, Mary’s behavior is totally inappropriate at a dinner party. Bringing nard to the table introduces an ominous air to a festive situation; its association with funerals cannot be overlooked. Then, anointing Jesus and wiping His feet with her hair crosses numerous social boundaries: male-female, life-death, intimate-public, leader-follower. Everything about this is most peculiar, unlike anything else we see in the Gospels.

So Judas’s shock is understandable, even if his motives are corrupt. No doubt everyone—other than Jesus and Mary—is appalled by her actions. Jesus’s reply to Judas’s complaint doesn’t ease the tension. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of My burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” (John 12.7-8) We can read His response any number of ways that miss His point. Is Jesus placing His personal comfort above the poor’s needs? Is He saying our commitment to end poverty is futile? Is He excusing what looks like conspicuous consumption? Why would Mary to bring augurs of His death to the table in the first place? Does she know something that no one else but Jesus realizes? Apparently, she does. In very short order, Jesus will be illegally arrested, tried, and executed.

It is vital for Mary to express her faithfulness to Him before He dies. She anoints His feet, because they are about to travel a rugged road that leads to Jerusalem and takes a sharp turn up Calvary’s hill. But why does she towel His feet with her hair? Jesus grasps the symbolism of her gesture. In physically reclaiming the excess, she shares in His death. It’s about more than staying with Jesus until the end; active faith emits intentions to remain with Christ always, in life, death, and life after death. That is, most certainly, a shocking confession.

The Story of Our Lives

Unfortunately, John doesn’t give Mary a chance to explain. If she could speak, she would echo Paul’s statement in Philippians 3.8: “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death.” Once again, we see a disciple at Jesus’s feet, pouring out his soul, desiring to get so close to Jesus that he’s inseparable from Him. Like Mary, Paul recognizes that resurrection is a miraculous outcome that overthrows the brutality of earlier suffering and the finality of death. (We cannot rise from what we do not experience.) Paul opens this passage with startling bravado. “If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more,” he brags in verse 4. He lists all the ways he’s superior, concluding, “as to righteousness under the law, [I am] blameless.” (v6) For someone constantly urging his readers to stay humble, his swagger seems wildly inappropriate. Yet Paul redeems himself in the next verse: “Whatever gains I had, these I regard as loss because of Christ.”

In Mary and Paul, we see two individuals of notable means and privilege. Neither is born into poverty. Both come from strong families and enjoy the advantages of status. Neither really has anything to prove in society’s eyes. Still, both implicitly understand that faith matters most of all. It is so central to their lives that they keep it in handy reach, using it to frame everything they do and say. Do they realize this will alarm some and anger others? Of course, they do. But their longing to know Christ in every way—in suffering, death, and resurrection—surpasses any concerns about how they’re viewed. They count everything but their faith as a loss. They know that following Christ through sufferings and death will bring new life to every aspect of their existence.

Which brings us back to the bookshelf. When My Faith becomes the most important volume in our lives, other books obtain greater meaning and clarity. In our homes and families, at work and play, we experience resurrection power by proclaiming victory over suffering and death through faith. The world will continue to turn. There will always be poor people. There will always be rich ones. There will always be cruel people. There will always be kind ones. But we who cherish faith most of all are unshaken by any of this, because our lives hew to a different story that grasps the relationship between loss and resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul poeticizes this, using a seed as his metaphor. He says: “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” (v42-43) That’s how faith seizes control of life’s sorrows and setbacks. That’s the story of our lives.

In anointing Jesus’s feet and wiping up the excess perfume with her hair, Mary shares in His death and resurrection. That is her story. And if we make faith central to our lives, it becomes our story, too.