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To be filled, you must first be empty.
To be made whole, you must first acknowledge brokenness.
To be rescued, you must first recognize that you are being held captive.
To know the fullness of Christ alive within you, you must first die to self.
The Apostle Paul would never have made it in the television age.
Seriously. Work with me here. Imagine Paul in a designer suit, his hair perfectly styled and gelled, his teeth perfect and gleaming white. He's standing on a stage in a multi-million-dollar auditorium. Behind him are three massive screens on which his image is broadcast larger than life, digitally enhanced and superimposed on images of snow-capped mountains and fields of wildflowers. In front of him on the stage is one of those clear, plexi-glass lecterns; you know, the kind that give the speaker something to set notes on but nothing to hide behind. Thousands of eager listeners wait upon his word, pencils poised to take note of any advice that will lead them to health, wealth, and happiness.
Every once in a while the television cameras scan the crowd and the screens behind Paul are filled with larger-than life images of beautiful people. Have you ever noticed how the people in those auditoriums are always just about as good-looking as the preacher? There all well-dressed and well-groomed and thin and they have good teeth. It's like they know they might end up on TV so they make sure they look their best. I've never seen anybody who looked like they were homeless, or in mourning, or otherwise in turmoil.
Paul paces the stage for a while, a scroll of Hebrew Scriptures rolled up in left hand. Finally, he turns to the attentive crowd, and speaks. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Nobody in the crowd writes anything down. A little later, Paul speaks again. "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." The crowd slowly makes its way to the exits. This is not what they came to hear.
See what I mean? Paul would never have made it in the television age.
Paul wasn't one of the beautiful people. Paul himself reported that he was neither handsome in appearance nor eloquent in speech. Paul didn't preach according to the patterns of modern-day motivational speakers either.
Paul downplayed his own credentials. In fact, whenever Paul pointed to himself, he pointed to his weakness. "If I must boast," he writes, "I will boast of the things that show my weakness." [2 Corinthians 11:30] And again, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." [2 Corinthians 12:7-10]
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul recounts some of his impressive credentials. He is a Hebrew of Hebrews, he says-circumcised on the eighth day in accordance with the Law, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee devoted to strict religious observance. And then he holds up his pedigree and tears it into pieces. "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him."
Paul doesn't stop there. After thoroughly discounting the importance of his own credentials, he points to the death of Christ and calls that the goal. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." [Philippians 3:7-11]
Paul didn't coddle his hearers either. Instead of encouraging them to celebrate their own inner strength and potential, he called them foolish and lowly and despised and nothing. "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many of you were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him." And then Paul points his hearers to Christ: "It is because of [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'" [1 Corinthians 1:26-31]
Paul keeps redirecting our attention from ourselves to Jesus. "But we have this treasure in jars of clay," he writes, "to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." [2 Corinthians 4:7-10]
Paul is brutally honest in describing the human condition. In Romans, he draws on a variety of Hebrew Scriptures to tell it like it is. "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graces; their tongues are practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes." [Romans 3:10-18]
Paul is brutally honest in acknowledging his own participation in the human condition. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. … For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing." [Romans 7:15, 18-19]
And then Paul again points to Christ. "What a wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!" [Romans 7:24-25]
As long as we are determined to maintain the illusion-for ourselves and for anybody who might look our way-that we are beautiful people, we don't want to hear what Paul has to say…we can't hear what Paul has to say. But, if we are willing to be honest, to look in the mirror and look deep into our own hearts, we know that what he says is true. We are broken.
Go back with me to the auditorium that I described earlier. Maybe the larger-than-life images still shimmer in the background. Maybe not. It doesn't really matter. Maybe the clear, plexi-glass lectern is still there. Maybe not. It doesn't really matter. Paul is there. He's not handsome. He's not eloquent. But he's speaking the truth.
Take another look at the crowd. The crowd isn't full of beautiful people anymore. The crowd is full of real people. There is loneliness there, and hunger. Some of them are trapped by addictions. Some are reeling from divorce. Some are sick. Some are two steps ahead of bankruptcy. Some are about to lash out in rage. Some have buried their emotions so deep that they hardly feel anything any more. Some bear resentment. Some are irritated or impatient or bothered by the smell of the person next to them. Some are grieving the loss of a loved one. Some are plotting the demise of someone who calls them friend. Some bear the shame of infidelity. Some make their living by exploiting others. Some are wondering which way to go. Some are greedy. Some are so sure that they are useless or unlovable or unforgivable that they can hardly look themselves in the eye when they look in a mirror. Some yelled at their kid this morning. Some just desperately want to be happy, but every time they grasp at the bluebird of happiness it dissolves into pain and regret. Some are sure they know the answers to everybody's questions but their own. Some are coasting along, fairly content, but occasionally wondering if maybe there might be some deeper meaning to life because it all feels rather empty at times.
Listen again to what Paul has to say: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Nobody files out of the auditorium this time. Because to real people-broken people-this is good news. I don't have to be held in bondage to sin and hurt and resentment and regret. Everything in me that stinks of death can be crucified and die. I don't have to be held in bondage to brokenness. Everything that is broken in me can be crucified and die. And, once I am empty, I can be filled. Once I die to self, I can live to Christ.
To be filled, you must first be empty.
To be made whole, you must first acknowledge brokenness.
To be rescued, you must first recognize that you are being held captive.
To know the fullness of Christ alive within you, you must first die to self.
Donald Miller writes about beginning to recognize this truth about the world, and about himself, when he was still a kid. [Blue Like Jazz, p. 14]
If you don't love somebody, it gets annoying when they tell you what to do or what to feel. When you love them you get pleasure from their pleasure, and it makes it easy to serve. I didn't love God because I didn't know God.
Still, I knew, because of my own feelings, there was something wrong with me, and I knew it wasn't only me. I knew it was everybody. It was like a bacteria or a cancer or a trance. It wasn't on the skin; it was in the soul. It showed itself in loneliness, lust, anger, jealousy, and depression. It had people screwed up bad everywhere you went-at the store, at home, at church; it was ugly and deep. Lots of singers on the radio were singing about it, and cops had jobs because of it. It was as if we were broken, I thought, as if we were never supposed to feel these sticky emotions. It was as if we were cracked, couldn't love right, couldn't feel good things for very long without screwing it all up. We were like gasoline engines running on diesel.
Later, Miller writes about his dawning awareness that Jesus is the only one who can save us from our brokenness, and he did it by becoming just like us, taking all our brokenness onto himself. [p. 33-34]
[A folksinger] told a story that helped me resolve some things about God. The story was about his friend who is a Navy SEAL. He told it like it was true, so I guess it was true, although it could have been a lie.
The folksinger said his friend was performing a covert operation, freeing hostages from a building in some dark part of the world. His friend's team flew in by helicopter, made their way to the compound and stormed into the room where the hostages had been imprisoned for months. The room, the folksinger said, was filthy and dark. The hostages were curled up in a corner, terrified. When the SEALs entered the room, they heard the gasps of the hostages. They stood at the door and called to the prisoners, telling them they were Americans. The SEALs asked the hostages to follow them, but the hostages wouldn't. They sat there on the floor and hid their eyes in fear. They were not of healthy mind and didn't believe their rescuers were really Americans.
The SEALs stood there, not knowing what to do. They couldn't possibly carry everybody out. One of the SEALs, the folksinger's friend, got an idea. He put down his weapon, took off his helmet, and curled up tightly next to the other hostages, getting so close his body was touching some of theirs. He softened the look on his face and put his arms around them. He was trying to show them he was one of them. None of the prison guards would have done this. He stayed there for a little while until some of the hostages started to look at him, finally meeting his eyes. The Navy SEAL whispered that they were Americans and were there to rescue them. Will you follow us? he said. The hero stood to his feet and one of the hostages did the same, then another, until all of them were willing to go. The story ends with all the hostages safe on an American aircraft carrier.
I never like it when the preachers said we had to follow Jesus. Sometimes they would make Him sound angry. But I liked the story the folksinger told. I liked the idea of Jesus becoming man, so that we would be able to trust Him, and I like that He healed people and loved them and cared deeply about how people were feeling.
When I understood that the decision to follow Jesus was very much like the decision the hostages had to make to follow their rescuer, I knew then that I needed to decide whether or not I would follow Him. The decision was simple once I asked myself, Is Jesus the Son of God, are we being held captive in a world run by Satan, a world filled with brokenness, and do I believe Jesus can rescue me from this condition?
To be filled, you must first be empty.
To be made whole, you must first acknowledge brokenness.
To be rescued, you must first recognize that you are being held captive.
To know the fullness of Christ alive within you, you must first die to self.
Then [Jesus] said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" [Luke 9:23-25]
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