The Cost of Witness (4)

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.

“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also” (John 15:18–20). 

In the heart of the Upper Room, in the midst of Jesus’ assurance of His love for us, in the trajectory of the call to live in deep fellowship with the Trinity, we have John 15:18–16:4, with its promise (if we may call it that) of persecution, rejection, and possibility of death for the sake of Jesus. 

This passage immediately follows Jesus speaking of His joy being made full in us and us loving one another as He loves us, a love manifested in our laying down our lives for one another.

When Jesus says, “Remember the word that I said to you,” He takes us back to the beginning of the Upper Room (13:16), “Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.”

Also note Matthew 10:24-25. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!” 

Here is a sequence found throughout Scripture, suffering precedes glory, death is a portal to resurrection. “…if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us” (Romans 8:17b–18).

At the heart of this is Jesus. Will we be identified with Jesus? With the Jesus Christ of the Cross and with the Cross of Jesus Christ? If our answer is “Yes,” then we must anticipate suffering for Him and others, it is a given; it is not an “if,” it is a “when.” It is just as much a fact of life as getting hit when playing American football or playing rugby. 

“If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rest on you…if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name” (1 Peter 4:14, 16). We are not to be ashamed of Jesus and His words (Mark 8:38). 

Is our identify in Jesus Christ? Is He the core of who we are? 

“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). Do we believe this? Do I believe this about me? Do you believe this about you? Do you believe this about your congregation? 

You can live as a member of a Christian tradition and not face resistance and persecution as a way of life, but you cannot live as a disciple of Jesus Christ and avoid difficulty, rejection, and persecution to one degree or another…whether from the world or from professing Christians. The Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ is an offense.

We forget that Jesus said, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way” (Luke 6:26). Our goal must not be to go along to get along. We must not be engaged in some type of painless marketing campaign that avoids the Cross in our own lives, in our message, and in the lives of others.

To be sure, our lives as well as our words are to be a witness to the world.

“Keep your behavior excellent among the peoples, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12). 

“Let your light shine before men in such as way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). 

“Prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life…” (Philippians 2:15–16a).

O dear friends, we live in a world of gossip and slander, will we refuse to partake of it and live in Christ?

We live in a world of spin and lies and deceit (in the political world, the business world, in the world at large, and in professing Christianity), will we refuse to participate in evil and instead speak the truth in Christ? I am going to talk about this below. 

We live in a world where anger animates our words, emotions, entertainment, sports, politics, relations with others, will we live as the sons and daughters of the Prince of Peace, will we live as peacemakers?

The world says, “To play with us you must pay the price of being with us and you must be like us, you must go along to get along and you must leave your Jesus outside.” This may not always be the case in certain seasons of life, it can be, but it might not be. Yes, it is always the bottom line with the world, but we can still make a difference, I’ll try to explain this below or in the next reflection. 

If we say, “Yes,” to the world, then we have accepted the mark of Revelation Chapter 13 in our souls. Do we really want to do this? 

If our churches and movements say “Yes” to the world then we have aligned ourselves with the Whore who rides the Beast of Revelation 17. Can we really be so stupid, those of us who seek alliance with the political and philosophic (worldview) and economic and nationalist movements of this world?

Well, I see that this piece had gotten long enough, so I am going to drop back in the next one (the Lord willing) and try to explain and illustrate some of things I’ve written above. Sharing Jesus with others in the workplace and in our communities is one of the joys of living in Him, and while life is a contact sport for sure, we can have wonderful joy when giving to others, in serving them in Christ. 

Sure there is a cost to witness, to share love and grace and mercy, but it is a price we ought to gladly pay…again, and again, and again. 

Our Last Battle (8)

 Caricatures Continue

Chapter Four opens with the King tied to a tree, away from the Shift the Ape and the stable and the gathering of Narnians. He has been beaten, he is hungry and thirsty. 

As night descends, Mice, a Rabbit, and Moles quietly come to the King with food, wine, water, and with care and concern. However, they cannot untie Tirian lest Aslan be angry with them, just as when Tirian was attacked by the Calormenes they dared not fight for their King, lest they go against Aslan. 

When Tirian asks them if they really think Aslan would command the killing and enslavement of Narnians, the Mice acknowledge the contradiction between Aslan’s actions and what they’d always heard about Him, but then remind Tirian that they’ve seen Aslan (Puzzle the donkey dressed in a dead lion’s skin). Their conclusion is that they must have done something really bad to deserve such punishment from Aslan.

There is a brief moment when Tirian has his own doubts about what is real and what isn’t concerning Aslan, but then he recalls the rubbish about Tash and Aslan being one and the same and that brings him back to his senses. 

The theme of caricature continues in this chapter, and with the Mice and Rabbit and Moles we see good – hearted Narnians torn between compassion for Tirian and fear of Aslan. They know something isn’t right, but they don’t know what to do because they are afraid. Yet, they have overcome their fear in some measure, if only for a moment, to give comfort to Tirian. 

As Tirian considers the danger these little ones have placed themselves in to bring him comfort, he bids them to leave him, for he would not for all of Narnia see them harmed. Here we see Tirian’s anger, a prominent feature in the story to this point, being displaced by love for others. 

Left to himself, the King begins to ponder the history of Narnia, the appearances of Aslan, and the accounts of mysterious children from another world who have appeared from time to time to save Narnia. He thinks, “It’s not like that with me…But it was all long ago…That sort of thing doesn’t happen now.” 

Here is another caricature in Our Last Battle, the caricature of the Bible, God’s Word. Has God’s Word changed? Does it no longer mean what it says? Can we trust the stories and commands and teachings of Scripture? Does Jesus still appear to His People? Does He still live with us? (This is a prominent theme in Prince Caspian and in The Silver Chair.)

Are we explaining away the Bible? Are we making excuses for not seeing and knowing Jesus as a Living Person? Are we teaching that the Holy Spirit is less than He is represented in Scripture? Are we sewing dead lions’ skins on donkeys to represent the Bible, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? Have we exalted our rationalizations, our sociology, our humanistic hermeneutics and epistemology, above the Word of God and the Person of Jesus Christ? Just how many stables are we constructing? 

If we aren’t asking these questions, we won’t know. If we aren’t asking these questions as part of the fabric of life, we will not know. However, there is risk in asking these questions, for we may end up like Tirian, beaten and tied to a tree, abandoned. 

How often are we told, “That was then, in Bible times, this is now in our times. God has changed, the Bible does not mean today what it meant when it was written. We have progressed."

An element of Our Last Battle is whether we accept the Bible as God gave it to us, and whether we are living under its authority, or whether we are re-forming the Bible into our image. Do we have the courage to think about these things? 

Since the Bible testifies to Jesus Christ, since Jesus Christ is seen holistically throughout Scripture (a reality that we have been blinded to), these questions are critical. This is all about Jesus Christ. Our Last Battle is about Jesus, just as The Last Battle is all about Aslan. 

And this suggests another danger in asking these questions, and that danger is that even in asking such questions, we may miss Jesus. Simply to identify caricatures or chasms between what we think and practice and believe today and the Jesus Christ of holistic Scripture is not enough. Our attention must not be directed to the chasm, it is to be always directed to Jesus. As important as it may be to realize there are chasms, what is of vital importance is to see Jesus and be drawn to Him, to know Him as we’ve never known Him before.

As we draw nearer and nearer to Jesus, as our friendship with Him becomes ever more intimate and vibrant, we forget about the chasms and caricatures in the light of His glory and grace and sweet friendship. In one sense it doesn’t matter so much where we have been, but rather where we are going, “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). 

In 1 Corinthians Chapter One, Paul in essence says, “We have a Message that doesn’t cater to Jews or Greeks, a Message that doesn’t conform to the expectations and paradigms of human culture. We have a Message that is a stumbling block to some and sheer foolishness to others.

Then in 2:2 he writes, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” 

It seems to me that much of our thinking today, including in Evangelical circles, seeks to remove the stumbling blocks and foolishness of the Gospel, of the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. In doing so, perhaps we are making Aslan into Tash, and Tash into Aslan, perhaps we are creating our own Tashlan.

Well, we’ll return to Tirian tied to a tree and seemingly abandoned in our next reflection (the Lord willing), for the story is about to take a wonderful turn.