The Wisdom of the Cross which the World will never Understand

          The childlike in faith are those who have walked further on this road of surrender and they are the ones pouring water onto your dusty feet. They are friends with God even if they never mention him in words. They seem inhuman, but more alive than anyone you have ever met. They seem simple in their love, their life. They exude hope. It falls out of their skin and from their mouth like the sweetest light. They are too good to be true. They still feel pain, but you do not know they feel it as badly as they do, because they absorb it (their pain and yours) and they turn it toward God who kisses it and heals it and then blesses them.

They seem to embody the purity of a child, holiness, oneness; but not that sticky, dark holiness, but a green and golden holiness of a far-away Kingdom, a holiness which inspires laughter and song. They are the children who tell their Father everything and pray about everything and love everyone and do not worry about what they shall eat or where they shall live; for their Father in his great adventurous fairy tale is teaching them to live in the now and through faith, and that it is better this way. It is happier this way, for in this way they shall be living closer in oneness with him, as they were created to live.

We on the road are learning that to live is only through the faithfulness of our brother Jesus, the Christ. We are willing to be laughed at if that is what our Father asks of us. And if he asks that we physically die we will gladly accept. We will do whatever he asks; we will go wherever he wills. We do not care at all. We just want him, who in our stupid, rapturous confusion we sold everything to go after. This is to be his disciple.

 

This is what it means when he says, “Come die with me, that you may live.” He could speak at any moment about anything, and the child on the road, though petrified, will say ‘Yes Lord. Yes.’

And for those of us standing at the base of the mountain, we look and see a golden gate called ‘Martyrdom’ near the top and think it to be the saint’s glory, a glory recognized by all the world. But for those children who have walked through that gate, they know better. For those who have walked through that gate called Martyrdom, the inscription upon it read:

“You will lose all honor here. It belongs to God. You will receive no glory. It is his alone. This is your death. Of everything you believed in, held dear, treasured, it is gone, forevermore along with Sin. Once you walk through this archway, you have but one purpose: to be loved by your Father and to live a new life within that Kingdom. And you will find that this is enough, more than enough. The world will not understand. Some of you, they will unfortunately recognize and they will mock. Some they will persecute and some they will kill. Most will live in obscurity. But from here on out, to live is Christ, to one day die, will be your wondrous gain. Give up what you think it means to live. And you will gain everything...you will gain true Life.”

What does this look like, lived out? How do you see into the soul of one who is dragging herself down the road of surrender by the Spirit of her Father?

Well when you live your life in ordinary moments knowing that you are in the right, and the other—whoever they may be—is in the wrong, but forgive rather than retaliate, that is to walk this road. Rather than vindicate yourself, exalt yourself, you absorb the humiliation, the despair, the judgment into your own soul so that you may love, forgive, serve the other; that is to be one with God.

And no one sees that.

When you hang bloody on a cross, though you do not deserve to be there, and the mob on the ground is laughing at you, though they should be the ones up here, and all you can hope through blinding pain is that they would be forgiven for their ignorance and their hatred and that you love them so much…that is to walk the road of surrender.

We do not see when someone is suffering internally for your sake, for mine.

It is an inglorious death! Oh what a death it is to be whatever your brother needs you to be in that moment so that they might know how much your Father loves you both!

 Over and over again, those on the road die to their own glory, their own vindication, their own respect, choosing to be whatever they are asked to be in that moment because their love for the Father is compelling them to forgive, to forgive even though their attacker has no idea that they are being forgiven.

And erect no barriers in your mind on what that may look like! It could be the tender compassion of Mother Teresa, the fiery declamation of Martin Luther King, or the monotonous but absolutely imperative daily lives of you and I. It could be having a beer with your moralistic sister who thinks she earns God’s grace by right living, or not having one at all (even though you really want one) when with your brother who has struggled with alcoholism.

Remember, Jesus was the Son of God when he loved, healing droves of people full of compassion, and when he loved, full of indignation as he cast out the money-lenders from his Father’s temple. He was whomever his brother needed him to be (whomever his brother needed him to be!) in that moment for the sake of delivering his Father’s message—I want you to come home. And every action of Christ was ultimately contained within a life which he alone knew to be headed toward a thirsty prayer hoisted above the earth as he begged his Father to forgive us, to forgive every one of us.

The point is…we are dying on this road.

Our lives are not our lives anymore.

They are our Father’s and he is giving them to our brother and sister.

Thus, the life we live is the life that Christ lived…who poured himself out completely; for he loved us more than his own life, his own freedom.

And why is the love of the Father compelling the remnant to suffer (trusting he will turn this torturous bile into living water) and not to vindicate themselves to the world’s eye? Because the Father would rather be utterly humiliated before all creation than to hurt you, than to lose you. His love is infinitely of more value than the glory he deserves. He has said that about himself. That is what he keeps saying in his Great Story.

‘I love you more than anything…absolutely anything.’

 

             That is why he has put up with us for so long. That is why he bound himself to us in covenant knowing what it would cost him. And this self-sacrifice, this invisible, bleeding love is what characterizes those walking the road of surrender, those becoming one with the Father. And you will never know it…Their love for you and for me is so great; it is the Father’s love. It is the wisdom of the cross which the world will never understand.