“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.” John 16:1 – 2.
Here we have an element of the saying, “Forewarned is forearmed.” In other words, when our expectations align with coming reality we are less likely to be surprised and knocked off our equilibrium, and if we are knocked off our equilibrium we are more likely to quickly regain it. The person who trains for emergencies and heightened challenges is more likely to respond to them in a helpful way than one who ignores their possibility or likelihood and does not prepare for them.
I had a parishioner who was a firefighter and EMT and he and his cohort trained every day. They trained in technique and they also engaged in intense physical training – emergencies that are a matter of life and death are not the time to learn how to save lives, nor are they the time to “get in shape” so that you can physically and mentally persevere to save others and yourself. Christians who fritter away their lives on entertainment and diversion and who are not invested in the Scriptures, the Kingdom, serving others, and koinonia with Jesus and others will need others to save them when difficulties arise – for no matter how they may appear on the outside, they are weak and defenseless on the inside.
Frankly, we have little courage in the professing church today because we are not disciples but rather consumers.
An American or Canadian football player, or an Australian Rules football player, is not surprised to be hit and knocked to the pitch by an opposing player. Imagine the shock to someone who had never seen the game of football and who decided to simply walk on the field to play thinking that it is similar to curling.
Jesus is saying, “I’m telling you these things so that you will not be surprised.”
Our response is, “I don’t want to do that. Teach me another way so that I can wear the football jersey of ‘Christian’ and not be knocked to the ground.”
And so we develop courses on witnessing such as the one that I’ve referred to in this series, courses which avoid the Christ of the Cross and the Cross Christ. We produce our own version of Madden Football, we play virtual Christianity without ever taking the field of life, the field of sharing Jesus, the field of praying with others, telling others about Jesus, of laying down our lives for others.
And we are so proud of ourselves. We are like children who hit a homerun in a wiffle ball game and imagine we’ve just blasted a 100 MPH pitch over the center field wall in Yankee Stadium. If the lives of others didn’t depend on our faithfulness to Jesus it might be amusing.
Now here is the thing, Jesus is framing His teaching in terms of the religious world, not in terms of worldwide culture. It is one thing to expect members of the opposing team to blindside you, but you don’t expect players on your own team to knock you unconscious, strip you naked, and leave you on the field to die. You don’t anticipate that religious folks, including professing Christians, including “church” institutions, will actually think that persecuting you is offering service to God. Welcome to Church History! Welcome to the professing church today. Welcome to Christianity without Jesus.
One thing that amazes me is that we make excuses for ourselves. We place our own evil in the context of sociology, or the norms of a particular time and place, in terms of surrounding culture. We do not have the courage to ask, “What does this say about the “nature” of men and institutions who persecute others, even to death, who disagree with them? Can this possibly be the Nature of Christ?”
How can an institution which professes to be “the” Church, display the nature of the enemy? How can the nature of another institution which professes to be reforming the church display a similar nature? At best, why can we not recognize an essential heresy in thinking and in practice – the Nature of the Lamb is not to kill, but to sacrifice Himself.
It is not the nature of Jesus Christ to kill other people, to torture them, to imprison them. It is the nature of Jesus Christ to suffer for others, to identify with them, to love them.
And to those who make excuses for the past sins and evil of their tradition, the true Church is supernatural and transcendent in origin and sustenance, the true Church follows and displays the Lamb. Let us not speak of the “true Church” if such a tradition or institution bears the fruit of sin and evil. Nor let us confuse the evil and sin of institutions with the faithful who seek to serve God and others within those toxic environments.
When institutions persecute others, sexually abuse others, withhold resources from others that would sustain life, impose harsh conditions on others to rob them of their human identities (such as with Native American children in Canada and the U.S. who were forcibly placed in residential homes, and homes for girls in Ireland), reinforce laws and practices designed to rob others of their basic human rights (such as Jim Crow) – how can we not ask, “Is this the Nature of the Lamb?”
If it is not the Nature of the Lamb, then it simply cannot be the Lamb’s Bride.
It is often easier to witness to the world than to professing Christians, for professing Christians, just as the Jews of the first century, have a self-righteous façade that they must maintain, their security and identity is not grounded in Jesus, but in religious tradition or faddism; not in a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, but in adherence to a religious tribe.
My eyes were opened to this is my first pastorate. I was so naïve. When one of the leaders in my parish talked about “the Congregationalist religion” I thought, “O my.” The measure of the validity of our traditions is the measure of our devotion to Jesus and our vision of the communion of saints, our commitment to unity in the Trinity.
The professing church is not always a safe place.
Well, my point is that those who witness for Jesus will frequently pay a cost at the hands of the professing church, in the past this has often meant death. In more “civilized” times this has meant imprisonment, loss of a job, being ostracized and marginalized. This is especially true in nations in which various wings of the “church” have aligned themselves, promiscuously, with political and nationalistic agendas, thereby betraying their devotion to Christ.
We did not arrive at a Christianity without Jesus overnight, it has been a process.
And here is a guarantee, those who are born of the flesh will persecute those who are born of the Spirit of promise (Galatians 4:21 – 31).
Jesus says, “I’ve told you these things so that you won’t be surprised.”
If we had the capacity to engage in self-criticism we would have some hope, maybe we could escape the religious and theological prisons we’ve constructed. But until Jesus is all that we desire, I’m not sure that is possible.
In the meantime, you dear reader, can choose to follow Jesus today, and tomorrow, and into eternity.
Hebrews 12:2.
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