A Matter of Life or Death

One of the main reasons I write this blog is because I want to talk about Jesus to the world.  Most of my work – as teacher, pastor, preacher – is aimed at people who already know Jesus, love Jesus, and want to follow Jesus (if though, sometimes, slowly and reluctantly). 

But out there in internet land are billions of people for whom Jesus is . . . well, I don’t know what you’re all thinking about out there when you do think of Jesus.  So many, I suspect, have a rather casual acquaintance with Jesus – someone to admire, someone whose example is noteworthy – but you are not ready to make the claim that Christians do – Lord, Savior, Christ, Son of God?

I was right there with you for several years of my life.  In my early 20’s I had become a respectful agnostic.  I had grown up the son of missionaries, with a Methodist preacher father, and while I was certainly influenced by the example of Jesus, I had turned my back on all the God-talk of my parents, and cast the church aside for sure.  How could any thinking person believe all that stuff?  I had read Bertrand Russell, and convinced myself I was too sophisticated for religion.

Hah!  Looking back I shake my head at how naïve I was.  Some of history’s greatest minds were unreservedly Christian.  Why?  Not because they came rationally to a conclusion that could be proven, but because they somehow encountered the living God.  I believe that happened to me.  Not in a burning bush, or struck-by-lightning-kind-of-way, but in a growing awareness that there was an authenticity to the life of Jesus – an integrity of word and deed that was unmatched in human history – and I sensed that his presence was still with me, with us, in some indefinable way.  And more importantly, I wanted that same sense of authenticity in my own life, so I made the decision to follow Jesus.  It was not a decision based on reason, but a hunch.

I only partially understood what following Jesus meant back then.  I know better now.  To follow Jesus is not without its pain (the cross is a vivid reminder of what following Jesus means).  But to follow Jesus is also a joy that the world cannot give or take away (the resurrection can be understood as a metaphor for that joy).

Some of you out there think that Christians are only concerned about heaven and hell.  So sad that you have perceived the gospel through the words of too many radio and TV preachers who are but caricatures of the real thing.  Heaven and hell act as symbols for life and death.  The gospel invites us to live, as Jesus says, “abundantly.” (John 10:10)

I am convinced that all of us are either living or dying.  We make decisions every day that are either life-giving or life-taking.  Sometimes by the choices we make the life we are taking is someone else’s.  Sometimes the life we are taking is our own (you know who you are).

But there are those who regularly, consistently, make life-giving decisions.  You speak words that encourage and affirm.  You take actions that enhance the lives of others, sometimes at sacrifice to yourself, and yet it seems a small price to pay.  Such actions prove the paradox of Jesus’ teaching that it is in giving our lives that we find life, as St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “it is in giving that we receive.”  And once in a while there are those words and deeds are in such harmony with each other that we are all ennobled by their example --- we see LIFE in them.

This is what God seeks to give us in Jesus – life to the full.  Life without guilt (forgiveness of sins).  Life without worry (trust).  Life with purpose (sacrifice for others).  Life full of joy (blessing and abundance).

Each Sunday I preach to a congregation.  Each Sunday I believe that what I have to say matters.  Indeed, it is a matter of life and death.  We are all, each one of us, either living or dying.  Jesus came that we may have life.  Why would you NOT choose to follow him?