Ready for My Close Up

     It really does not matter what you think of Mel Gibson these days. He has had some bad years lately. He has come so far from the days that he was on the screen playing Benjamin Martin in the Patriot, William Wallace in Brave heart, Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon series, or even Mad Max Rockatansky in Beyond Thunder dome.

     You would be justified if you did not like him for his behavior, for the domestic abuse charge or the anti Semitic screed that have plagued his later life. It would be easy to discount the whole body of his work based on these incidents alone. However, even if you do not like him and would not see him in another film, every Christian owes him a debt of gratitude for his work on the Passion of the Christ.

     Watching this film has become a yearly event around Easter. The raw nature of the film can bring the audience to near rapture allowing the watcher an understanding of the crucifixion that most will never realize through their Christian life. Maybe it is a case of God using Balaam’s Ass again but he deserves credit for making one of the most important Christian movies since the Ten Commandments.    

    There is one scene that is the most impressive scene in the whole movie. It is not a scene that really stands out that much, it is not the scourging, it is not the betrayal in the Garden, it is not the trip up the Via Delarosa but because of the way that it was filmed it is the most important scene in the entire film. 

     In the scene we see Jim Caviezel playing Jesus being lowered onto the cross piece of the cross. The arm and hands of the centurions wrestle our Saviors hands into place as one set of hands come into view with the nails and hammer. We catch a glimpse of the hammer descending towards the nail and then cut away to the underside of the beam as the nail pierces through it.

     I do not want to concentrate on the brutal act of the crucifixion, we could fix our attention on the bloodied body, the ripped skin, the ravaged person of Jesus but it would not be the part that I am talking about. Do not get me wrong every second of the crucifixion is important, every lash of the whip, every drop of blood is necessary for us to realize exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. What I want to concentrate on are those hands holding the nail and the hammer.

     Mel Gibson wanted to make a statement with this film; his statement, though veiled, was those hands. We never see the face of the people who play the centurions in that scene; the most important thing is the act that those hands performed, the actual crucifixion.  We are led to assume that those hands could belong to anyone. But the hands that we see are Mel’s own hands.

     The statement that he wanted to make was that he was responsible for Jesus’ Crucifixion and death. He wanted to say that it was his sins that nailed Jesus to the cross. Like him or not he is right, like him or not, it is a statement that each of us needs to take to heart. Each of us owns a part of the crucifixion, each of us nailed Him to the cross. We all should be on that cross, a righteous God demands it. We have all committed cosmic treason and are deserving of death. A loving God took our place dying for us. He paid the price we could not pay to receive the life we did not deserve. Our sins nailed him there, our hands held the hammer, our hands held the nail. 

Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Self Less

     Early in my Christian Walk, and when I say early I mean in the first few months of my conversion, I was faced with the very first real dilemma of my faith. It did not help that I was still very new to the Christian life; I was still trying to figure out what it meant to be a Christian. All I knew was that I wanted to be obedient to Christ. Christ had offered me a changed life, a life that held meaning and purpose, and I meant to have it.

     During one Sunday night service the pastor told us that one of our greatest needs as a Christian was to “Die to self.” Twelve years later these words still cause me to shiver. That night I was beside myself. On the one hand I knew that this was one of those habits that a Christian should know, but for me I had no idea of what it meant to die to self. I had been listening to the sermon; I knew that the Apostle Paul had admonished the Galatians to die to self. Paul had even given himself as the example by telling his audience that “I die daily.” But how was I going to add this to my spiritual repertoire, the spiritual novice that I was.

     By the end of the service I was in tears, literally in tears. My whole life had been lived with me on center stage. I had lived a life dedicated to fulfilling my own desires. Even when I did a “selfless act,” I did it with the thought, what’s in it for me. I was singing in the key of me. Me, Me, Me, Me… To die to myself was alien to me I had no idea even where you would start. After the service I made my way down to the front pew and waited to talk with the pastor. All I could say was, “I don’t know how.”

     He did not so much answer the question as he did pose a different one. His question is the same as the one that I pose to you,”How close do you want to be to God?”  There are two different types of Christian, well really three. The first is the cultural Christian; the I’m a Christian because my parents were Christians. The second is the kind I did not want to be, the Christian who goes through their Christian life as if it were something to check off of their list for the week or something that they do out of guilt. Then there is the one I want to be, a sold out, born again, son of the throne, Jesus freak. A real, “Honk if you love Jesus” follower of Christ.

     How far you want to go with Christ will determine how well you will be able to die to self.   Paul says I am dead, but yet I live, yet it is not I, but Christ that lives in me.  Allowing Christ to live in you is the process of dying to self. To live for Christ is to let his will be our will, conforming our desires to the desires of Christ to the point where nothing else matters, not our wants and not our desires.  

     It is in the Christians nature to desire the will of God in their lives. Do not fool yourself though. We are commanded to die to self; we are commanded to present ourselves as living sacrifices but the natural man cannot do either. As the Old preacher said; the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep getting off the alter. Our baser nature keeps us from doing what we want to do, that which we are supposed to do. Paul said that he also had a hard time with this also, He said; “I die daily.” It was not something that he did once and then never had to do again, it was a daily thing that he did. For us it may have to be an hourly thing but over time it will get easier. What God commands he will equips us with what we need to accomplish his will. As we grow as Christians and we grow closer to God, relying on Him, we learn to die to ourselves and to the world that preaches self above all else.    

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.