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My personal discovery of liberating joy in the gospel of Jesus. Published by Pacific Press Chapter Eight Agape, the Intruding Force My children were toddlers, not old enough to help pack for a trip but old enough to think they could. We were headed for Florida for Christmas, mommy and kids would go first, daddy would come later. That meant mommy was the alpha and omega of the packing and traveling ritual. I had to hover closely enough over the little ducklings to make sure they didn’t pack a suitcase full of swimsuits and nothing else, but remain distant enough to avoid insulting them with the insinuation that they couldn’t manage alone. It was an exhausting day, but finally their suitcases, all six of them (I have two children), were packed and waiting by the door, and they themselves were tucked neatly in bed, totally unconscious. Now I could stumble through my own packing with my eyes at half-mast, hoping my semi-comatose state didn’t cause me to forget something crucial, like clothes. Then there were business details to tie up, pets to house, airport convenes to coordinate and Christmas presents to wrap. Finally at midnight I set my alarm for 4 AM and flopped into bed muttering, "I will sleep on the plane tomorrow." On the plane tomorrow, which in four wee hours became today, I was reminded of the foremost rule of airplane seating etiquette; the middle seat is for mommies. In other words, no one wants the middle seat, and in the pecking order of preferences, mommy’s preferences come last. So there I was, the one who vowed she would sleep, sitting between two toddlers on their way to see Gramma and a bunch of Christmas presents with their names on it. They carried with them an atmosphere that was about as conducive to sleep as a playpen full of Mexican jumping beans. I tried tipping my seat back and laying my head on the headrest, but one of them accidentally smacked me in the nose. I put my elbow on the armrest and rested my tired head in my hand, but one of them knocked my arm out from under me. My exhaustion overcame me. I envisioned almost simultaneously my hands wrapped tightly around a little neck and headlines in Tampa Bay’s morning paper declaring the same. No, murder is not the answer, I thought, reading is. I pulled out the book I happened to be reading, which was E. J. Waggoner’s "Waggoner on Romans," and opened it to the bookmark. My eyes literally fell on the following passage. I could almost hear Waggoner speaking plaintively: "What is patience? It is endurance of suffering. . ." Oh, I don’t believe it, I thought. He nailed me! ! I read on: "The root of the word "patience" means suffering. We see this in the fact that one who is ill is called "a patient" that is, he is a sufferer. People often excuse their petulance by saying that they have so much to endure. They think that they would be patient if they did not have to suffer so much. No, they would not be. There can be no patience where there is no suffering. Trouble does not destroy patience, but develops it. When trouble seems to destroy one’s patience, it is simply showing the fact that the person had no patience."1 I realized at that moment what God was trying to say. I had no patience, but this patience-testing circumstance was the perfect opportunity for me to get it. I couldn’t even achieve patience without something to test it! In short, patience, like all the attributes of love, requires suffering. I felt my nerves decompress and the muscles of my neck release. The rest of the flight was no different as far as the external circumstances were concerned; the Mexican jumping beans continued doing the cha-cha, which caused several more accidental blows and continued intrusion upon my personal space, I was still exhausted and still unable to sleep, but I was different inside. I was drinking from a deeper well that fortified me for life’s irritations by showing me how God could use them. Finally I could say, "I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" 2 Corinthians 12:9. This experience in childrearing and so many others have provided a window into the fourth characteristic of agape—self-sacrifice. Back to Top Suffering Love Suffering is innate to love. Why? Because the fallen creation is calibrated to work in opposition to love, so love requires going against nature. Nature includes our human nature, also calibrated in the school of self-centeredness, which opposes the existence of love within us. Agape love is an intruding force in this world, causing an alarm reaction befitting an alien invasion whenever it is manifest. There is no chance for negotiating peace between the two worlds, either. Something must die, agape or nature. It is God’s will that nature dies and agape lives. This is called self-denial, a foreign concept to this world where me-ism increasingly reigns. It is different than self-discipline in that self-discipline practices temporary denial in order to secure lasting fulfillment. Self-discipline delays gratification in order to have greater gratification in the end. There is nothing innately Christian about self-discipline, and it shouldn’t be confused with Christianity because any strong-willed egotist can practice self-discipline without one drop of the Holy Spirit’s infusion. Self-denial, on the other hand, takes the working of a power outside of ourselves. It is not temporary nor does it seek greater gratification. It is a complete surrender of self, forever. Embodied it is this, that the Father denied Himself (gave) His Son, and that Son denied Himself His Father, that we might be saved. Can you look at that reality and not be gashed open in remorse? If you can, you need to take a closer look, something we can all afford to do at any time, something the Lord tried to lead His church to do in 1888, and something we will do right now. Seeing is Being A staid focus on the closing scenes of Christ’s life will characterize the Christians of the last days of earth’s history. It is from this well that God’s followers will draw their motivation to remain loyal to Him through the greatest test that has ever come upon humankind—the test of the Mark of the Beast. Biblical accounts of the last days depict a time when faithfulness to God will necessitate passing through a trial so severe that only fully mature Christians will maintain their fidelity. What characterizes the people who pass this test? The fact that they "follow the Lamb wherever He goes" Revelation 14:4. "The Lamb" refers to Christ in His office of self-giving Redeemer. The remnant people do not, in this scenario, "follow the Lion wherever He goes," or the even "follow the Creator" or "follow the Law-Giver," although obviously they are one and the same Divine Person, Jesus Christ. This reference to the self-giving of Christ shows that God’s last-day people will follow the spirit of self-denial manifest by the Lamb as He hung upon the Cross of Calvary. In short, God’s followers will be selfless. Back to Top The Power of Identity How can self-entrenched human beings ever come to this point? By a simple dynamic called beholding. It works in two steps: 1. I come to identify with what I spend time observing. 2. I become like what I identify with. Why did I iron my wavy hair as a teenager? Because I came to identify with the models in the fashion magazines, whom I spent time observing (They all had stick-straight hair!). Eventually I conformed myself to what I identified with, even if it meant risking burning my hair off. The same thing can work in the positive. I can learn to identify with Christ and in so doing be conformed to His image. But what is the initial attraction to Him? Something must grab our attention to lead us to even want to spend time beholding Him. As mentioned previously, the foundation of "What did Jesus do?" must be in place before I can be properly motivated to do anything good, including spending time with God. So many of our attempts at devotion are ritualistic and dry. Shouldn’t it be our desire to seek the Lord? If so, what will spark that desire? What will make us want to start identifying with Him? For me, it has been discovering how closely He first identified with me. This was a prominent feature of the 1888 message, and played a huge role in enticing me into a deeper study life. I saw that Jesus became "like His brethren," identifying Himself so completely with sinners that He identified with sin itself and suffered the wrath of God as if He Himself was a sinner. This drew me into fellowship with Him. How? Let me give you an illustration from my own life. It’s not pretty, but it will get the point across. One of the most isolating experiences I can draw up out of my childhood memory bank was being molested by a group of kids on the playground at school. Yes, molested, as in physically, sexually and every-ally molested. You don’t need to hear the details, but I remember it so vividly that I can relive it as if it happened yesterday. I can still see the faces flashing back and forth between mean and angry to mocking laughter as this group of kids literally sabotaged me emotionally and physically. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it, and I had no way to defend myself. As a result, I know what it is to be violated and helpless to stop it. This event was no more than an embarrassing memory until I saw it in the light of Christ’s humanity. Jesus, in becoming man, subjected Himself to all the trials and temptations that afflict men and women, including the trauma of abuse, and in so doing walked into my private hell in order to reach me. That Jesus would subject Himself to torture and mockery, that He would embrace as part of the Father’s plan the cross and all the abuse that it involved touched my heart in a way nothing else could. Consider these statements pertaining to Calvary: "At the hands of the beings whom He had created, and for whom He was making an infinite sacrifice, He received every indignity."3 "Never was criminal treated in so inhuman a manner as was the Son of God."4 The point of this is not to try to prove that Jesus was sexually molested, but it is to prove that His dignity was violated, and that horribly. Essentially all abuse is the same in this respect. The difference between his abuse and mine, however, is that in His case it was avoidable. He could have called ten thousand angels, or just pointed one Sovereign Finger at the idiots and reduced them to an ash heap. Why didn’t He? Because He relished the opportunity to come near to me where I am. Not many people have come to the part of me that was isolated that day on the playground, but Jesus has. He came through the obstacle course of my pain so that He could look me in the eye and say, "I know how you feel." And do you know what? I believe Him. I read the account of the Cross and the nearness of Christ becomes perceptibly real. I see in Him a high and holy God who came down to the level of humanity on every point except participation in sin itself. I see the ugly faces surrounding Him and sense His yearning for sympathy. I feel the invasion of hateful hands that crawled over His body in swarms, and the gashing of implements of torture. I taste the blood and smell the spit dripping down His kind face. I see Him in the midst of all this, looking straight into my soul and saying, "I am here to find you. I am earning the right to your affections and your worship. I am touched, forever touched, with the feeling of your weakness." Somehow my spirit’s frontier is transformed. The wilderness is tamed, and a clear path that leads to the throne of God is in clear view. I want nothing more than to follow this Jesus who followed me first into the wilds of sin and sadness. I want to rest in His presence, to know all there is to know about Him. Once I am drawn into fellowship with Jesus, the law of beholding begins to unfold itself in my life. 1. I come to identify with Jesus as I spend time observing Him. 2. I become like Jesus as I identify with Him. It is simple but very, very potent. This identifying with Christ will produce the same spirit of self-denial in His followers that He Himself exemplified. Once I have been touched with His identification with me, I not only identify with Him, but I feel naturally compelled to identify with fellow sinners. In this way the love of Christ awakens love, not just love for Him, but love among people. It is not the mighty, the disciplined, the gritty or the gifted that will finally and fully reflect Him to the world, it is the weakest of the weak, the helpless, the hurting like you and me. The opportunity to come into the closest fellowship with Him is open to any and all who are willing to follow the Lamb. This will naturally produce Christian character, and with it the spirit of self-giving. Back to Top Giving to Get But much of our religion today indicates more self-discipline than self-denial. We may "give up" certain things, but we see them as a means to gain something greater. We sing of "joy by and by," seeing the trials of life as a kind of price we pay for a waiting reward. The only difference between those of us who view the keeping of God’s law as an act of penance which will gain heaven and the Catholic monk of the dark ages wearing a hair shirt is that the monk does what is not required while we take what is required and transform it into an act of self-salvation. Waggoner said this was like "crucifying ourselves on our own crosses. . . we were antichrist ourselves, and all the time we were doing that, we were throwing stones at the pope."5 Although God works with us where we are, self-centered motivations are limited in what they can produce. If we rest satisfied in them, we are bound to regress into this kind of salvation by works. While I have no burden to belittle the reality of our heavenly home, it is a sad thing when our motivations go no deeper than longing for streets of gold and an end to taxes. Wouldn’t it bring comfort to Christ’s heart to know that we were serving Him, not to gain heaven or lose hell, but because we love Him? When the world is divided into but two camps, every character will be fully developed. This means that the motivations of the heart will come to fruition, and there will be no hiding who we really are. We have the privilege today of allowing God to transform and purify our motives to the point where we are clear channels through which He can shine. No, we aren’t there yet, and anyone who claims to be is giving conclusive proof that he’s not. We are, however, called to operate on better motives than fear of punishment and hope of reward. A realization of Christ’s identity with me and my subsequent identification with Him will produce those better motives. Ah, but I haven’t even scratched the surface of this phenomenon called self-sacrifice. We see glimmers of it in the crucifixion, but we see it in its zenith at the cross. You see, the cross was much more than the crucifixion. What really happened at Calvary was as far beyond mere human abuse and physical torture as cancer is beyond a flea bite. Yet the physical and emotional sufferings of Christ at the hands of men do help us understand the soul-agony he suffered at the hands of God by giving us a reference point from which to work. As we hear of the blood and bruises, the interrogation and abuses, the degree of empathy we feel serves as a launching pad for our journey into the realms of the soul-suffering which we naturally have a dimmer conception of. The next step in my journey, hopefully a journey you will continue to share with me, was to take a hard look at what it was about Calvary that constituted the greatest sacrifice ever made. Emmanuel, God with us Emmanuel, God with us Emmanuel, God with us Emmanuel, God with us Emmanuel, God with us
1E. J. Waggoner, Waggoner On Romans, page 5.94. Back to Top To order, call 1-800-765-6955 or go to www.adventistbookcenter.com Or order from our products page. |
