Excerpt from Chapter Twelve, JESUS: Killing ME ...
To avoid the hollowness of a life lived for such things, we must rely on God to transport us beyond ourselves and away from the temptation to bury our heads in the sand of selfish pleasures.
When we do that, we truly find that illusive purpose to existence that so many people, in so many places, in so many circumstances have sought their entire lives in vain. We discover this exhortation of Philippians is not nearly as much about rebuking us from something that will hurt us, as it is about encouraging us to embrace something that will bring us great joy:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
A few years ago, I was walking around Washington, D.C. with my college roommate Syd. We’d taken a Fall Break trip out to the East Coast, spent a couple days in New York City, and were hitting the nation’s capital in one day before heading home. It was a very warm autumn afternoon and we’d literally been walking all over that city. We’d gotten off the Metro early that morning down by the Supreme Court building and began our epic journey heading west. We hoofed it past the Capitol, down through the National Mall including a brief stop at the National Archives to see the Declaration and Constitution, breezed through the National Museum of American History, strolled around the Washington Monument, up to the gates of the White House, back down past the Vietnam Wall and the reflecting pool, up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial, across the Arlington bridge to the Iwo Jima Memorial and on to Arlington National Cemetery.
There, we watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, visited Lee’s house and the Kennedy gravesites, and then headed south towards the Pentagon. We didn’t go all the way up to the military headquarters, but got close enough to take pictures before looping back to cross the Potomac and finish with the Jefferson Memorial and Holocaust Museum. Like I said, we had walked a lot.
But before we crossed the Potomac to finish the last leg of our journey, we had decided to take a seat on the grassy slope that led down to the river just to rest a couple minutes in the shade of a few trees. I was busy looking at the guide map to make sure we were crossing in the right place so as to save a few steps (Syd was the cross-country star, I was not). I asked Syd what the name of the bridge was that we were sitting close to, and after a few minutes of looking for a sign he replied, “It’s the Arland D. Williams, Jr. Memorial Bridge.” I immediately looked up and got a chill down my spine. I knew that bridge. I had seen that bridge. And I couldn’t believe where we were sitting.
Back on January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 took off from Washington National Airport heading to Ft. Lauderdale. The flight was airborne just 30 seconds before pilot error brought the plane carrying 79 passengers and crew smashing into the 14th Street Bridge. The wrecked airliner then crashed into the icy waters of the Potomac River. What happened after the crash remains one of the most haunting spectacles I have ever watched on television (not live, but on many “air disaster” shows). The tail section of the plane remained near the surface, and six injured and stunned survivors clung to pieces of wreckage and chunks of ice in a desperate attempt to stay afloat and alive. The conditions were so bad that even though the bridge was crowded with onlookers, and the banks of the river became filled with would-be rescuers, there was virtually no way anyone could make it to the wreckage without succumbing to the icy waters and adding to the tragic loss of life.
About 20 minutes after the crash, a rescue helicopter finally arrived and attempted to lower rope lines to lift the survivors to shore. After pulling the first victim to the safety of the river bank, the helicopter dropped a line to Arland D. Williams. Rather than keep it, Arland turned and passed it to flight attendant Kelly Duncan who was pulled into the waiting arms of rescuers. On the next trip back to the wreckage, the helicopter lowered two lifelines, recognizing time was running out for the survivors in the frigid waters. Williams grabbed the lines and again passed them on, first to survivor Joe Stiley (who himself was holding onto another victim who had been temporarily blinded by jet fuel), and the second to Stiley’s co-worker, Nikki Felch. All of them were saved. But when the helicopter returned for Arland, he had slipped beneath the waters and drowned.
I had watched that horrible scene play out multiple times on television replays and couldn’t believe that I was sitting right where that drama had unfolded a couple decades before. When I think of the words of Scripture that tell me to, “value others above yourselves,” I think of Arland Williams, Jr. I think of that rope landing in his hands and watching him push it over to another endangered soul, and another, and another... until all had been saved, but him. Would I do that? Do I do that? When God throws me the rope of great financial blessing, do I pass it on to someone else in greater need? When God throws me the rope of favor, fame and fortune, do I pass them on to others more deserving? Surely that is the self-sacrifice that would, should we all aspire to it, make the world a far better place.
There’s one other moment I think of when I consider the value of selflessness over selfishness that Christianity teaches. I was a freshman in college when I walked into my American Education class with Dr. Jim Elsberry. Dr. Elsberry was a fabulous teacher and was a perfect mentor for anyone seriously considering a career in education. He also had one really annoying habit: if you had any kind of emotional or sensitive side to you, he would leave you blubbering like a pansy at the start of almost every class. Every day of class that semester, Elsberry would start by reading an excerpt from some motivational or uplifting book like Chicken Soup for the Soul. And I remember specifically sitting in the front row when he shared this one entitled, “On Courage” by Dan Millman:
“Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the
antibodies needed to combat the illness.
The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘Yes, I’ll do it if it will save Liza.’
As the transfusion progressed, he lay in a bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, ‘Will I start to die right away?’
Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.”
Good heavens, Dr. E...here I am, a single guy trying to impress the ladies, and I’m like a fire hose in the front row reaching for mops and towels to dry my eyes. But again, that kind of self-less, self-effacing, self-sacrificial love is what we must commit ourselves to in the new life that arises from burying our old one.
It removes from us the ability to boast, because nothing we do or accomplish came as a result of our own efforts. “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”
It culminates in an existence that encounters a freedom and liberty the world cannot offer. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
It brings us to a point of recognition that nothing is ours, not even ourselves. “I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.”
RADICAL CHRISTIANITY
If that sounds radical, it is. Because that’s exactly what Christianity, a life handed over to the greatest radical who ever lived, is supposed to be – a complete departure from everything that seems natural. It’s a new way of thinking where God tells us that what we think is right, isn’t right at all. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
See, this is what Christianity was supposed to be about all along. When we are instructed to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,” and to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind,” God is making it abundantly clear that this is an entirely new direction, reality and existence we are entering into that is profoundly, thoroughly, drastically and fundamentally different than everything to which we are accustomed.
Don’t just give lip service to that truth. Try to grasp it and what it means to our perspective and outlook on life. It’s interesting to think about the one time Scripture records Jesus weeping. It was at the graveside of Lazarus, His friend. Now, honestly, the vast majority of us have probably never given this too much thought. We just assume that Jesus cries because He’s sad that His friend died. That’s what we do, so that’s obviously what Jesus was experiencing. Or not.
Remember, Jesus went to the tomb knowing that He was going to perform a complete resuscitation and bring Lazarus back to life. He was getting ready to hang out with Lazarus in just a few seconds. It doesn’t even make sense to think that Jesus is weeping over a departed friend. So why was He? Might it be that Jesus was weeping because after all He had done to prove to His followers the promise of everlasting life in Him, they still didn’t get it...they still didn’t truly believe? Look at what He told Martha, the sister of Lazarus:
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’”
He wept because they didn’t believe. I wonder if He looks down on the funerals of Christians today and weeps for the same reason. After all, why do we mourn at the death of a Christian loved one? Do we truly believe that they are with Christ? Do we truly believe that they are happy and safe? Do we truly believe that Jesus was telling the truth that they never really die but have just been changed to live on in a glorified body, in the presence of everlasting joy? If we
do truly believe those things, then why do we cry and mourn?
The answer should be obvious. We mourn for selfish reasons. We will miss the company they provided us. We will miss what they offered us. We will miss what they did for us. We will miss the companionship and care they brought us. Tens of thousands of Christ followers die every day, but we don’t mourn them. And why? Because they aren’t our friend, our husband, our wife, our child, our mom, our dad. Where’s the focus? And who are we really feeling sorry for? ME.
I don’t say all of this to make anyone feel guilty or sinful. I’ve cried at plenty of funerals, and if a loved one died tomorrow, I would go through that grief in a very real way. I’m not pointing fingers or chastising anyone for natural human emotions. But I am suggesting that this is the radical transformation of our minds that we are supposed to be committing to: recognizing that nothing is ours and everything is God’s. Everything that has been created was made to glorify Him, not us.
In the midst of the unimaginable sorrow of losing his entire family to death, Job tells us, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” The Apostle Paul, no stranger to personal hardship himself, counsels, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” Is that our response to great personal loss?
If not, perhaps we haven’t fully realized the meaning of a Christian life. Perhaps we are yet to completely fulfill the words of Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” ...
