25 July 2014 - ad majorem dei gloriam

25 July 2014 - ad majorem dei gloriam

“You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”
They said to him, “We can.”

Jesus calls us all to take up our crosses and follow him.  As Bonhoeffer says, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."  Do we know what we are asking?  Not entirely.  In trying to hold this idea in our imagination we try to create some measure of control over it.  But to die implies that the knower will no longer even be able to know.  We can recognize that, but not experience it in advance.  And yet there is no need to fear.  It is only by grace that any of this is possible.

Brothers and sisters:
We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.

Because it is by grace, we can all hear Jesus tell us, "My chalice you will indeed drink".  We recognize that it will be difficult, not because the yoke is difficult of the burden heavy, but because we have a hard time letting go and surrendering.  

Although they go forth weeping,
carrying the seed to be sown,
They shall come back rejoicing,
carrying their sheaves. 

We lay our own lives down and in their place we discover the treasure that they contain. We come back rejoicing, carrying our sheaves, the surpassing power of God.

It is in this sweet exchange of our lives and our sins and for the Spirit-filled life of God, wherein we become able to be servants to others.  We begin to manifest that life which we receive, the life of the Son of Man who "did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."  We do this because as Jesus gives us his Spirit he enables us to trust his Father instead of relying ourselves.

knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus
will raise us also with Jesus
and place us with you in his presence.

Let us lay down our own lives and be filled with the surpassing power of God.  Then, when we experience suffering it becomes, not just our own suffering, but the dying of Jesus in our body.  Then, by his surpassing power, suffering is thereby transformed so that it always and inexorably leads to the manifestation of his risen life in us. Then "the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God."  May he indeed be glorified.