Crucified Hearts

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”
— John 19:5

Perhaps in this transition between the old year and the new, your reevaluations and your dreams have caused you to think about the meaning of things, even the meaning of your life.

Let me offer you this.

Do you believe in a life that is rooted in the weakness and foolishness of God, instead of the power and wisdom of men? Does that even make sense to you?

Or did you become a Christian and remain a Christian because you think God is all about the power and the glory? Because you’re just waiting for that promised second coming of Jesus when the world will see just how special you are?

I mean this, what is weaker than a man crucified on a cross, what is more foolish than to believe this is the wise way of life? But that was then and this is now, so surely God has something better for us? Didn’t Jesus die so we wouldn’t have to suffer like that, all that humiliation, all that rejection, all that injustice and shame, to be so misunderstood and lonely?

Yet this is the gospel, the good news, the way of salvation that this crucified and risen Jesus sends us out to proclaim. He actually says we must take up our cross and follow him as we do it, that the cross isn’t just a faith but also a practice, a way of living.

So we preach Christ crucified and resurrected as the heart of our message for the meaning of life.

But have we learned there is no handle on the cross, not like a briefcase or handbag or backpack. The cross is something very heavy, something we can barely carry because of our bleeding shoulders and our weakened frame.

And when others see us carrying this cross as we follow Jesus they don’t praise us for it or admire us. We are despised, held in contempt, and spit on for being followers of one so weak and foolish to allow himself to be treated in such a way. There’s no way a real God would allow this to happen to himself or his followers.

But, “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed…

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Yet…

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned⁠—every one⁠—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
— Isaiah 53:1,3-6

Is this the Jesus that you want to be like? Is this the image you’re after?

What did you suppose this text meant?

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
— Romans 8:29

The image of God is Christ crucified.

Or have you been all about the power and the wisdom of your faith, thanking God that you are better than unbelievers, full of pride because you made the “right” choice and they have not?

Have you really embraced the humiliation and rejection of the cross, of being seen as powerless in the face of evil and foolish for living a life that may bring you more suffering than you ever imagined?

Are you finding joy in this way of living, if indeed you are living this way, or do you secretly harbor doubts, fears, grumblings, and bitterness for not being loved and appreciated by a world that crucified your Lord? Are you secretly angry because you are disrespected? In the heart that no one can see are you harboring a spirit of revenge that would willingly punish your enemies if only you could get away with it?

Do you go to bed every night complaining to God because life hasn’t turned out the way you thought it should after you started following Jesus?

Is your faith a fraud or are you truly content, as the Apostle Paul says,

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
— 2 Corinthians 12:10

What kind of contentment have you been seeking if not this?

I asked these questions because they’re so frequently a great contrast to the boasting proclamations of faith and practice made by Christians while there are appears to be little embrace of real suffering for the faith without complaints and bitterness.

The church is replete with fashionable, well-coiffed, entertained and entertaining, dazzling, talented, capable, educated, corpulently cultured consuming Christians, who disdain any association with their impoverished brothers and sisters, except perhaps on a well publicized missionary effort that reinforces their goodness in the eyes of their friends and family.

In the coming year may we plead for God to mercifuly spare us from our comforts apart from comforts of the cross, so that in the coming year “the word of the Cross” may be the life of the cross in a world that hates it, yet so desperately needs the One we nailed to it.

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:21-31

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” — John 19:5

Can we say less?