Stand Up, Stand Up

     January 1956, the Cover of Life Magazine highlighted the story of five young missionaries who were slaughtered in Ecuador. Four young students from Wheaton College and their pilot fell at the hands of the Auca Indians. These young missionaries were following the calling of their lives, carrying the Gospel to the indigenous tribes of South America. For their leader, Jim Elliot, he would die following the maxim of his life, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

    The history of the church is replete with stories of men and women who have made a stand for God, for the cause of Christ. The disciples gave their lives one by one in the service of the Gospel. Some became Martyrs (Witnesses) for the faith.

     In the first century Polycarp went to the stake refusing to recant his faith. Two centuries later Athanasius, then a deacon, stood for the faith even against what seemed to be the whole of the known world. (Athanasius Contra Mundum) In a dark and dank prison cell John Wycliffe wrote the first English Translation of the Bible. In defense of the word of God, Martin Luther went to the Diet of Worms proclaiming, “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. May God help me. Amen.” Luther along with other reformers staked their lives on the belief in the purity and the sanctity of the word of God.

    Through the past two plus millennia believers have been fed to lions, killed in the coliseum, burned as human candles, tortured, and persecuted. Since the moment that Jesus proclaimed,” Upon this rock (on the proclamations of the faith) I will build my Church.” It has been necessary for believers to stand up in defense of the Gospel.  Even today when we as a world have become so civilized, sarcasm only vaguely intended, people are giving their lives, being thrown into prison, and being disowned by their families because of Christ.  

     In the United States it’s different, in the US there is no one dying for their faith. There is no one going to prison for their faith. There is no one being thrown out of their homes because of Christ. In the United States, it is easy to be a Christian and yet we have the same mandate that every believer has. Stand up for your faith, stand up for Christ. Luke 12:8-9  “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God,  but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” When was the last time that you told someone about Jesus? When did you defend your faith or even tell someone that you were a Christian?  No one is asking you to forfeit your life, at least not yet. Jesus died for you; can you at least live for him?

     Jim Elliot’s dream did not die with him.  Though he never saw the fruit of his labor, Christ would be known among the Auca Indians of Ecuador. The logical thing would be for the families of the murdered missionaries to return home calling the experience a failure. The widows of the slain men stayed in Ecuador and ministered to the very people who had killed their husbands. Betty Elliot, wife of Jim Elliot, was able to see two of the men who murdered her husband as well as many of the Auca people come to Christ. She stood for Christ when many would have turned their back on this brutal tribe. Standing for God was just that important, and it still is.   

It all starts at the cross.

                                      

     We live in various places. We have followed differing paths. Each of us has lived the life that has unfolded before us. We have done what was right in our own eyes. Each decision that we have made has added to the sum total of our lives.

     It seems as if we do a lot of living. We do a lot of living and breathing, laughing and crying, in triumph and in disgrace.  So how can it be that nothing truly starts until we deal with the cross?

     The centurion had spent his life in the service of Rome. He lived his life an obedient servant of the Roman crown. He had made his way up through the ranks. He had proven himself in battle and as a leader. He had proven that he could keep his men out of trouble and under his watchful eye he groomed them into an elite fighting regiment. 

     Everything that he was ordered by his superiors to do was carried out with consummate skill and efficiency. Every order was carried out without question. He was at the vanguard of every charge; he was nine time more likely to lose his life in battle than any of his men. Battles hinged on the prowess of the centurion. To get his post as centurion he had to pull every political favor that he and his family had and to keep his position he had to be the best at what soldiers do, break things and kill people. He was good at his job and business was good. The centurion would never do anything to compromise the position that he had worked so hard to obtain. So why was the day at the cross so different?

     What was so important about the Galilean?  Everyone had heard the stories. But the man that they had nailed to the cross that day was nothing special. He was just an ordinary Jew. Besides, by the time that they got him to Golgotha he was hardly a man at all, more blood and pulp than anything, barely enough to crucify anyway. The whips had seen to that. It was a miracle that he could stand at all. They must have really hated this one.

     But something was different about this one. Most people facing crucifixion start screaming that they were innocent. They beg for their pitiful lives crying that they did not want to be nailed to the crosses and when that fails they cuss a blue streak.

     But this one was different. It almost seemed as if he had moved his own hands into place so that they could be nailed to the cross beam. He did not plead for his pitiful life.  No protest came from his mouth, in fact he prayed for the soldiers that were nailing him secure to the cross. He said,”Forgive them Father; they do not know what they are doing.”  Later while he was being mocked by another prisoner he told the one on the other side,” Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  He was dying and he was trying to comfort his fellow prisoner.  The most amazing came when the Old woman made her way to the foot of his cross. It could only have been his mother. The old woman was grieving so badly that this skinny young man had to steady her so that she did not faint. That man looked down from where he hung and actually made arrangements for her care after he was dead. He told that boy to take care of that woman as if she was his own Mama.

     It only got worse from there.  About noon something happened that no one would ever forget. It started to get dark, later people would say that it was only an eclipse, but that was no eclipse; it got so dark that it was like someone had blown out a candle at midnight. That darkness stayed for what felt like an eternity. Fear and near panic washed through the soldiers. It was all the centurion could do to keep his men in place.   

      When the light did finally come back, it was like a blind man regaining his sight. Everything was in sharp relief, everything was so clear. This new clarity added nothing to the uneasy feeling that they felt. Every ones nerves were on edge. There was such a sense of expectation in the air. When the man on the cross finally spoke it should have eased their tension. He said, “It is Finished!”  Nothing felt finished, the dread only increased.  

     The centurion could almost tell you to the minute how long a person would last on a cross. He had been watching this man for hours, he was bad off but he could last for a while longer. This one did not slowly succumb to death like everyone else did fighting for their last breath till they finally give up and die. His death was different, he looked up towards the sky and said, “Father, into your hand I commit my spirit.”  He gave away his life. His body could have gone on but he willed it to end. It was like a man walking out of a room, one moment he was there, the next he was gone.

     The earthquake, oh the earthquake. As bad as the darkness was this was worse. It was as if the whole earth was mourning his death. It felt as if the whole of existence were tearing itself apart. The second his heart stopped the earth heaved as if it were trying to start his heart up again.

     All the centurion could do is stand in wide eyed wonder and take it all in. It could have been a reflex, it could have been involuntary.  The words fell from his gaping mouth, “Surely He is the Son of God!” That statement could have cost the centurion everything that he had worked so hard to achieve.  He could have lost his position in the Guard, he could lose the respect of his men, and it could have even cost him his life. Whatever it could have cost him he knew it was the only thing that mattered, it was the only possible response. How he responded at the foot of the cross was the most important thing that he would ever do.

     There are many things that we do that make us think that we are successful. In themselves each of these can be important in the grand scheme of things, but there is only one thing that has any eternal significance. Each of us will one day find ourselves, like the centurion, at the foot of the cross. For some, we look at the cross and see what God has done for us, we see what Jesus sacrificed in our place and that it was our sin that put him there. At that point we will utter as the centurion did that, “Surely this is the Son of God!”

     For others, they will look upon the cross shrug and turn and walk away. None of what they see will make the least bit of impact. They will never be touched by what they have faced. They will never be changed. But one day, one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God.    

What went wrong?

     To look at the world today is to see a pretty godless place. Even those who profess that mankind is generally good are starting to lose their resolve. Dictators kill millions of their own people and fifty millions babies have been slaughtered in the name of choice, in the name of convenience. There are wars and rumors of wars. Our enemies are at the gates.

     Where is God in all this? Are we not a Christian nation? Are we not Gods people? God had so blessed our nation that there seemed to be no end to it. It seems as if he is taking his hand off our country. Today God can seem so very far away.  Have we lost our way?  

     The book of second kings ends with the destruction of Jerusalem. Solomon’s great temple destroyed, looted and burned. The king, taken off in chains, blinded after being forced to watch while his children were fried to death and all but a remnant of the Israelites taken into captivity.

     Where was God? Were the children of Israel not the chosen people? Was this not the Zion praised of in the psalms? Had God not made Jerusalem a glorious empire unraveled in the known world. This was paradise on earth, the land of milk and honey. So what happened?

     Why would God turn his back on his beloved people? How could he be so cruel? How could he allow his children to be so abused?

     At the time of the dedication of the temple Solomon prays a blessing for the temple and for Gods protection of his people. In this prayer we get a glimpse into the future of Israel. Solomon  ask that if there should be a time when the people are taken into captivity that God would listen to their cries and show favor to his children.

      If we have ears to hear we would benefit from the answer that God gave to Solomon in 2 Chronicles chapter seven.  “ If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, Then will I hear from heaven, will forgive their sins and heal their lands.( 2 Chronicles 7:14)”

      There is a time when we become so arrogant and full of ourselves that we no longer will abide with God, no longer will we bend the knee. There is a time when we become a law unto ourselves, a time where God has no choice but to allow us to reap the consequences of our actions.   Even as he mourns for us as a parents grieves over a wayward child till they return. Return to your fist love, seek his face.

     Over thirty years of their married life a farmer and his wife traced the route between their farm and the town where they took their crops to sell. Through the wood and over the mountainous terrain they drove their old pickup truck. On one of these trips the old farm wife said to her husband,” You know when we started these trips you and I were so close together that we could not even get a piece of paper between us.” “Look at us now, you are all the way over there behind the wheel and here I am all the way over here by this door.”  Without even turning his head the farmer replied, “I never moved.”

     Often we act as if God has left us, that he has left us and forsaken us. In reality it is us who have moved away from the Lord. We have chosen a path that does not include God at all and we are surprised when it turns out to be the wrong direction. All we have to do is turn around and we will realize the he is exactly where he has always been waiting for us.