Mt. 818-22/Luke 9: 57-62 - Reality Check. So, you think you want to follow Me? Jesus asks me. I nod my head in ignorance having no idea what I am truly saying. Having no idea to follow Him means forsaking all, losing all, torture, death, and persecution. I have no place to rest my head, He says. The foxes, the birds... they have rest, but their Maker does not. Its as if the cast of Romeo and Juliet has refused Shakespeare any spotlight on the stage. He has showed up for the final bow and the curtain closes before he can accept his rightful applause.... The creation has spurned the Creator. How much more wandering and rejection can one who is still part of the creation expect? If the world rejects its maker, how much more one of their own? The dead hang with the dead. Outside of Christ, WE are the walking dead. Mindless hordes following our impulses, dragging our feet, consuming those actually alive to glut our appetite for fulfillment. Rick Grimes has let us know that the zombie curse is in us all. And it is. We are doomed to walk amongst the dead. Yet, Christ says He makes us free. So, when He says, Follow me, and we reply, Let me go first and bury my father. We reject life and embrace death, unknowingly. ‘When,’ will never come. That is, the ‘when’ in, “I’ll follow you when (fill in the blank).” When my father dies, when I’ve said goodbye to my family, when I graduate college, when my partying days are over, when I’ve completed this film series, when the Cubs win the series. It doesn’t matter what it is. There is Christ, there is His kingdom, everything else fails. These things sound harsh to we who cannot see. But for Him who sees clearly (Jesus) it is perfectly clear. Jesus looks at us as men and women amidst a collapsing house. The columns are breaking, the walls are falling. He looks at us and says, “Follow me… Walk away from your crumbling house before it descends upon you, and follow Me. I am the lifeboat.” We are all in our own House of Usher. Our inner chaos permeates our surroundings. Yet, we do not see it. Jesus tells me to rush out of my collapsing ruin, I am not to go back and say bye, not to go back and wait until my father dies so I can bury him. If I do the house may collapse before I can get out. This passage may be looked at as unloving, but what is loving about watching someone perish in their own self-inflicted death? This is love. This is the savior, constantly offering his saving hand.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:56:30 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015