One day Lucy was chasing Charlie Brown, shouting, “I’ll get you, Charlie Brown. I’ll catch you, and when I do, I’m going to knock your block off!”
Suddenly Charlie Brown screeched to a halt. He turned around and said, “Wait a minute, Lucy. If you and I, as relatively small children with relatively small problems, can’t sit down and talk through our problems in a mature way, how can we expect the nations of the world to—“
Then POW! Lucy slugged him. She said, “I had to hit him quick. He was beginning to make sense!”
In some ways, this reminds me of Jesus’ story. Some of his contemporaries decided to ‘hit him quick” with the cross, because Jesus was beginning to make sense! And the “sense” was upsetting their routine and their world. Jesus’ lifestyle and words were a reminder that this world, while important, isn’t ultimate; that religion that really answers the deepest questions of the human heart is more than ritual, that life-transforming faith is more than a simple acknowledgment of some truths; that family, in fact all relationships, while at the core of what brings happiness and meaning to human life, is not the ultimate relationship, but that a personal relationship with God occupies that place.
Jesus lived and taught and related in a way that, while difficult, proves itself to be true. And because of that; narrow minds and set lives and established priorities were being upset and so they “hit him quick” with the cross.
Lent is an invitation to walk in Jesus’ way. It is a challenge to make time for Jesus in our busy lives and to look at our existence in the light of what Jesus said, did and is. And it isn’t uncommon for us to start to feel uncomfortable. I certainly do. Many of the Bible passages for the season of Lent upset me by turning my comfortable world upside down. They remind me how many areas of my life I have made “off limits” to God’s claim of ownership. Or I try to rationalize the demands of Jesus and say they don’t really apply to me or the world in which I live. And because I do, I see so little growth towards contentment and wholeness in my life. But slowly, God gets to me and I come to realize that these are simply excuses, avoidance, my various ways of “hitting him quick” before I am converted by the uncommon sense of the Gospel message.
Many years ago when the great Japanese Christian Toyohiko Kagawa was on a speaking tour, he was asked by a college student to define “prayer”. Everyone present fully expected him to give a highly theological explanation, but he surprised them by defining prayer with one word—surrender.
As I get older and I look at my vocabulary of faith, my attempts to understand and explain the Christian faith, “surrender” is one of the key words; right up there next to grace, faith, love, mercy, compassion, and hope. Surrender means obedience to the God’s will, collaboration with God’s purposes, submission to God’s leading, identification with and commitment to God’s cause. Submission is trust.
The Lenten journey reminds me of this need for surrender. And if I can hold off on my desire to silence Jesus and what he is saying to my heart, and am willing to surrender, I find that my life is different and I am richer in the things that really matter, especially peace and compassion.
We have just entered the third week of Lent and the journey can begin to weigh on us and even make us question whether or not to keep on. Let me encourage you not to give up. If you have, you can start again. Share your tiredness or your questions with a friend. Ask him/her to pray for you. But if you continue to put one foot in front of the other and maintain the journey, I’m pretty sure that you will begin to see just how much sense following Jesus really makes.
Peace
