If you fail you can't be a Christian anymore. Or at least you can't tell anyone you are. Apparently Jesus doesn't like losers. I guess He is more like me than I ever imagined.
The truth is that I am a terrible elitist, of the particular type usually called a Pharisee. It isn't money or worldly success that I worship but spiritual success. I am convinced in the deepest part of my soul that God made us to pass some test, go above some bar, perform in some fashion. If I don't do Christianity right then I will lose. Lose what you ask? Ultimately I think the answer is God's approval. His acceptance, to be declared "Not a Loser" by the ultimate judge, is the greatest prize of all. What could possibly be greater or more glorious? And to that way of thinking the biggest loser in world history would have to be Jesus of Nazareth. Despite having this amazing setup, two thousand years of prophecy about what a huge winner He would be, star shining on His birth, wise men coming from all directions, the prodigy that set all the teachers scratching their heads He crashed it all in the most epic way imaginable.
The boy with unlimited potential by the age of thirty must have been a massive disappointment. He spent His time hanging out with His fishing buddies and getting drunk. Even though He could work miracles few people could stand to be around Him. I know I have messed up some good things, but how is it that the guy who can heal the sick left and right, multiply food, and raise the dead winds up a homeless drunk? His miracles are startling failures. You use divine power to help stretch out a party with more liquor? Most of His miracles seem to have been worked on the Sabbath deliberately to piss off the church crowd. There were crowds gathering trying to give Him the throne, they could clearly see that He could whip Rome from one end of the world to the other, if He would just shut up. The Jews really did try and work with Him I believe but when you insist on your religion being one of cannibalism, "Eat my flesh and drink my blood and live forever" no wonder people think you are in league with the devil. Kind of an obvious conclusion.
So, the hero of every dream-the great Prince on the White Horse-coming to destroy all the bad guys and rescue all the babes, the ultimate winner, against all odds, in the most stunning display of loserness imaginable, gets arrested, is too stubborn to defend Himself against charges that even the judge said were garbage, is executed like the absolute lowest of society. And to crown it all, the One He did it all for, His Father, turns His back on Him at the end. He blacks out the sun as if to cover His shame over what His Son did.
It is surprising how easy that is to write. You don't have to force any of the facts they all just kind of fall in place. I think that there can be little doubt that that is the way most of His contemporaries viewed Him, I have done little more than present their complaints against Him. There are only two things against this opinion, first His Father's own testimony, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." and again, "This is my Son, Hear Him." and second the sequel- the unimaginable resurrection.
But how did we get it so wrong, when it seems so right? I would like to suggest that our entire premise is wrong. Not just the premise which I used to write that story, but the premise on which I've based my life. I think maybe the best way to state that premise is to say that it is the belief that we are made to succeed. I know a lot of church dorks say that we are making success an idol, but they like me, have just substituted "spiritual" success for more obvious and natural types of success. Which is probably a move further from the truth and not closer to it.
It is clear, however, that we have some relationship to success, to performance, to all that is called Law, in contrast to Gospel. If success isn't the measure of a man then what is success' connection to us? Let us go back to the great champion of failure.
23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
25 But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: 26 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”
27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” Mark 2
Does this have anything to do with what we were talking about? If we make the not very great leap of logic that the Sabbath is the representative of the whole law, the whole system of condemnation and failure that has trapped us all of our lives. Is it fair to stretch what is said about the Sabbath out to the whole law, not just the code of laws but the whole idea of ,"The man who does it shall live by it."? Well, as both Paul and James tell us the Law stands or falls as a whole. It is all one thing, it is victory or defeat, life or death, success or failure, love or hatred.
On the other hand, the Sabbath is in one way very different from the rest of the Law, almost in opposition to it. The whole law commands, "Perform or die" and the Sabbath says, "Stop trying. Give up. Accept defeat." If that doesn't sound true to you, then imagine anyone in a struggle to the death taking a day off, taking a second off. So if it seems hard to win this great race, then taking a day off in the middle is definately not going to work. Isn't that how the hare lost to the tortoise after all?
So, why did God set a huge stumbling block right in the middle of the Law? For you. The Sabbath was made for you. The Sabbath was made to make it unmistakably obvious that we can't succeed and to tell us that that is ok. God's plan is not to hold a measuring stick-any measuring stick-up to you and see if you make the cut. I know that He will judge us all one day but everything I know about Jesus Christ and His Gospel convinces me that we have radically misunderstood what that means.
Success, performance, righteousness, are not goals for us to strive after. They are gifts, robes that Our Father throws on His Prodigals as He sacrifices His lamb to make a party for us.
Jesus was a Capricorn
Love and peace, jc
