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REVISITED: A Forest of Crosses

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Read Matthew 2:13-23; John 21:1-19

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

A father, a mother and their young three-year old boy are making a long and dangerous trip home. They had spent the past few years in hiding and decided that it was finally safe to return home. There wasn’t much certainty of what would be awaiting them upon their return home; however, they knew that they could not stay away forever.

As they finally reach their homeland, they are entering a hell that they cannot even begin to anticipate.  Their young son looks up, wide-eyed and frightened, left speechless by what his innocent eyes were witnessing.  The mother looks up and gasps, calling her husband to look up. Above them is a forest of crosses, erect and grotesque. To each of the crosses are lifeless corpses, blackened with the decay of death. The bodies are rotting and are torn open from the pecking beaks of birds and the gnashing teeth of jackals and other scavengers that have made a feast of the flesh.

I am guessing that many of you are probably pretty disturbed by the image that has just been painted in two short paragraphs. If so, just imagine what the how scarred the little boy must’ve been to look up and see the sight of those bodies nailed to a forest of crosses. Hundreds of them set in their places to send a message of fear to anyone who dare resist the law of the land. This little boy, whose name is Yeshua in his native language of Aramaic and whose known by the Greek translation of that name (Jesus), would never forget the images of the crosses that foreshadow the way he is ultimately going to die.

This is the scene of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus returning home from Egypt in the History Channel miniseries, “The Bible.”  And there can be no doubt that Jesus’ life in ancient, 1st Century, Palestine, would have been riddled with such horrific images. Jesus grew up in a world where the word “peace” equated to a cruel, merciless, and torturous death.  In Jesus’ world, there were was no democracy, there were no civil “rights”, and there was no middle class. There were only the haves and the have-nots.

When we hear Jesus telling his disciples that if they wish to be his disciples they need to deny themselves and pick up their crosses, let us not forget the image above of the forest of crosses filled with the rotting, decaying stench of corpses.  Jesus wasn’t talking about putting on a silver or gold necklace when he said “pick up your cross”; rather, he was talking about the Roman means of capital punishment.

As we move closer to Holy Week, and ultimately to Good Friday (the darkest day in the Christian calendar) let us reflect, not only on the sacrifice that Jesus made, but on the sacrifice Christ is calling us to make. If we are going to be Christ’s followers, if we really believe in Jesus’ message, then we will be willing to lose it all…no matter how bad it hurts…for the sake of Christ and his Good News.

While, I cannot tell you what your cross is, or how you are to bear it, remember that the only way to get to Good Friday is to pick up your cross and follow Jesus. The only way to get to Easter, to get to your own resurrection, is to die to all that you believe you are and to embrace who God proclaims you are.  The only way to truly live, is to die to whatever is holding you back from giving your all to God.  For most of us, this “dying is metaphorical”, but that doesn’t make it any less real.  We are called to die to ourselves, and be resurrected in Christ Jesus so that we may bring God’s hope, healing and wholeness to those who are in desperate need of the life that God has to offer.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

To deny yourself does not equal self-neglect; rather, it equals the recognition that you are not “YOUR” own.

PRAYER

Lord, I surrender myself to your will. Use me in a way that will bring about your Kingdom here on earth. Amen.

Devotional

The Beatitudes, part 1: Intro

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Read Matthew 5:1-12; Luke 6:20-23

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the one who is firstborn from among the dead so that he might occupy the first place in everything.” (Colossians 1:18 CEB)

We’ve all heard them, even those who are not “religious” or have never opened a Bible are familiar with them,  and most people hold them up as the pinnacle of Jesus’ teachings. But the question remains, how many people truly understand what Jesus is teaching in the Beatitudes? In order to shed light on them, I have decided to write a series on the beatitudes, which will precede an even larger series on Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” as a whole.

When we think of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount,” we often think first of “the Beatitudes”, which are a collection of blessings proclaimed on specific groupings of people. While they sound like pleasant and idealistic platitudes given by a lofty and well-intentioned teacher, we often pass them off as being “the mark of perfection” and/or wholly unattainable. In other words, we either dismiss ourselves from centering our lives on them because we are not “the Christ” and, therefore, will fall short of them, and/or we think of them to be unrealistic and/or unattainable in this broken and fallen world.

Yet, both of the above fall into a general misunderstandings of what Jesus is doing in them. The word beatitude comes from the Latin Vulgate translation of Matthew 5:1-11, where Jesus proclaims “Beati”, which means “happy,” and is from the root Latin word of “beātitūdō,” meaning happiness. Yet, the Latin does not quite capture what Jesus is doing in this set of proclamations. In Greek, the language in which the Gospel According to Matthew was written, the word Jesus uses is, “makarios” (μακάριος) meaning, supremely or divinely “blessed” and, by extension, privileged, fortunate and/or well-off. This better fits what Jesus is doing as he is proclaiming an objective reality that is a result of an act of God (being blessed), and not about a subjective feeling (being happy).

Drawing on a tradition that is found both in ancient Jewish and ancient pagan writings, Jesus uses these beatitudes to teach people the heart of God as well as the center of God’s coming Kingdom. The beatitudes are not objective truths that are a reality in this present world order; rather, they seem to go against what we humans commonly value and they seem to go against our common human experience.

Surely, the poor are not blessed. Surely the meek do not inherit the earth. Surely, the hungry are not blessed, nor are those who being persecuted for any reason. How can Jesus claim these things, which are so clearly and evidently NOT true, and still maintain credibility? How can we follow a Jesus who seems so clearly aloof and disconnected with reality?

What’s important to note here is that the beatitudes are not true in and of themselves, nor is Jesus proclaiming them to be. To read them that way is to, ultimately, miss what Jesus is doing here. He is not declaring these things to be present realities within the world order; rather, Jesus is declaring them to be realities in the divine order. In other words, by virtue of Jesus’ authority as the as the Son of God and Lord of the Church, these nine “blessings” are true and to be held as such by all who submit to Jesus’ authority.

As we prepare to study the Beatitudes, prepare yourself by reading them carefully, more than once, and by opening yourself to what Jesus is proclaiming. Ask yourself, why is Jesus proclaiming these groupings of people to be divinely blessed? Why are they the ones who are privileged, fortunate, and well-off and what does Jesus’ proclamation say about our current world order and those who, by the world’s measure, are privileged, fortunate and/or well-off? Finally, ask yourself this: do you accept the authority of Jesus as Lord and, by extension, do you embrace Jesus’ proclamation on the basis of his authority? I pray that, as we move forward, the wisdom of the Beatitudes will ever transform you.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“The Beatitudes are no spiritual ‘to do list’ to be attempted by eager, rule-keeping disciples. It is a spiritual ‘done’ list of the qualities God brings to bear in the people who follow Jesus.” – Ronnie McBrayer

PRAYER
Lord, prepare my heart and open it up to your wisdom and the authority of your Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Devotional

A Forest of Crosses

3 Comments

Read Matthew 2:13-23; John 21:1-19

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

A father, a mother and their young three-year old boy are making a long and dangerous trip home. They had spent the past few years in hiding and decided that it was finally safe to return home. There wasn’t much certainty of what would be awaiting them upon their return home; however, they knew that they could not stay away forever.

As they finally reach their homeland, they are entering a hell that they cannot even begin to anticipate.  Their young son looks up, wide-eyed and frightened, left speechless by what his innocent eyes were witnessing.  The mother looks up and gasps, calling her husband to look up. Above them is a forest of crosses, erect and grotesque. To each of the crosses are lifeless corpses, blackened with the decay of death. The bodies are rotting and are torn open from the pecking beaks of birds and the gnashing teeth of jackals and other scavengers that have made a feast of the flesh.

I am guessing that many of you are probably pretty disturbed by the image that has just been painted in two short paragraphs. If so, just imagine what the how scarred the little boy must’ve been to look up and see the sight of those bodies nailed to a forest of crosses. Hundreds of them set in their places to send a message of fear to anyone who dare resist the law of the land. This little boy, whose name is Yeshua in his native language of Aramaic and whose known by the Greek translation of that name (Jesus), would never forget the images of the crosses that foreshadow the way he is ultimately going to die.

This is the scene of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus returning home from Egypt in the History Channel miniseries, “The Bible.”  And there can be no doubt that Jesus’ life in ancient, 1st Century, Palestine, would have been riddled with such horrific images. Jesus grew up in a world where the word “peace” equated to a cruel, merciless, and torturous death.  In Jesus’ world, there were was no democracy, there were no civil “rights”, and there was no middle class. There were only the haves and the have-nots.

When we hear Jesus telling his disciples that if they wish to be his disciples they need to deny themselves and pick up their crosses, let us not forget the image above of the forest of crosses filled with the rotting, decaying stench of corpses.  Jesus wasn’t talking about putting on a silver or gold necklace when he said “pick up your cross”; rather, he was talking about the Roman means of capital punishment.

As we move closer to Holy Week, and ultimately to Good Friday (the darkest day in the Christian calendar) let us reflect, not only on the sacrifice that Jesus made, but on the sacrifice Christ is calling us to make. If we are going to be Christ’s followers, if we really believe in Jesus’ message, then we will be willing to lose it all…no matter how bad it hurts…for the sake of Christ and his Good News.

While, I cannot tell you what your cross is, or how you are to bear it, remember that the only way to get to Good Friday is to pick up your cross and follow Jesus. The only way to get to Easter, to get to your own resurrection, is to die to all that you believe you are and to embrace who God proclaims you are.  The only way to truly live, is to die to whatever is holding you back from giving your all to God.  For most of us, this “dying is metaphorical”, but that doesn’t make it any less real.  We are called to die to ourselves, and be resurrected in Christ Jesus so that we may bring God’s hope, healing and wholeness to those who are in desperate need of the life that God has to offer.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

To deny yourself does not equal self-neglect; rather, it equals the recognition that you are not “YOUR” own.

PRAYER

Lord, I surrender myself to your will. Use me in a way that will bring about your Kingdom here on earth. Amen.