‘People think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is a cross’ – Flannery O’Connor
Phil Wickham has nailed it.
Mind you, I don’t know Mr. Wickham. For all I know he wrote his song in a moment of exuberance and doesn’t really mean what he’s singing (although I suspect he most certainly does). But the words to his song, The Jesus Way, are precisely what the Christian world needs to hear. You can listen to the song here. I particularly appreciate the first and third verses:
If you curse me, then I will bless you
If you hurt me, I will forgive
And if you hate me, then I will love you
I choose the Jesus way –
If you strike me, I will embrace you
And if you chain me, I’ll sing his praise
And I you kill me, my home is heaven
Oh, I choose the Jesus way
Wow. What a call to radical, nonviolent love! You just don’t find many popular church songs willing to lay it out so plainly (go ahead, try to find some). The song has been out for over a year, but I heard it for the first time a week or so ago. I looked it up and discovered it was only a minor hit on the Christian charts last year. Perhaps its recent spike in airplay indicates a comeback of sorts. That would be nice, but I suspect, sadly, that its lyrics won’t find much purchase in the minds and hearts of many contemporary Christians, particularly those who make the most noise these days.
That’s because many professing Christians don’t understand what it means to follow Jesus. Too many believe in what Dietrich Bonhoeffer termed, ‘cheap grace.’ Somehow, we have reduced the beautiful, fathomless mystery of the Atonement to shorthand: ‘Jesus died so we don’t have to.’ There is truth in this, but the repetition of this truncated explanation has its flaws. For one thing, it’s obviously wrong in that we do still die (last I checked, the death rate was still hovering around 100%). But beyond this, this shorthand has bled into Christian thinking to the extent that it is commonly believed we need never lay down our lives for Jesus. Indeed, we never have to suffer for Jesus. His way does not require it. There is no cost to following Jesus, because, after all, ‘Jesus paid it all.’
But while Jesus can be said to have paid it all in terms of the wages of sin, he most certainly did not call us to lives of ease. He calls us to lives of surrender and sacrifice. He calls us to ‘take up our crosses and follow him’ (Matthew 16:24). He calls us to imitate him (Luke 6:40). He tells us that ‘in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33). He calls us to, as Wickham sings, bless those who curse us, forgive those who hurt us, love those who hate us, embrace those who strike us, and, yes, to even die rather than become violent ourselves, knowing that the worst thing the world can ever do to us will only bring about our own resurrection (‘if you kill me, my home is heaven’). In short, no matter what the world does to us, our call is to love as Jesus loved, even to love our enemies to the point of death.
This is a hard teaching, and it is no wonder few can accept it. But it is the 100% Gospel truth. When we ignore it, we get pretty much the Christian landscape we see before us in our present moment of American history. Once people decide, ‘Jesus died so I don’t have to,’ a shift takes place in their minds. If the goal of the Christian life is to stay alive, rather than give your life away, than it becomes easy to hate your enemy instead of loving them. It becomes easy to join the chorus of demagoguery, scapegoating, war, and violence. The goal, after all, is self-preservation and life the way you want it. And so, if someone threatens you or your way of life, even a little, you have every right to curse them, demean them, dehumanize them, propose violence against them, even perpetrate that violence yourself. You no longer have to turn the other cheek when struck. Instead, you strike back as hard as you can even before you have been struck. ‘Do it to them before they do it to us,’ as Robert Prosky’s character on Hill Street Blues used to say. As a member of Congress put it not too long ago, ‘Jesus could have avoided crucifixion if he’d had an AR-15.’ Remember: Jesus died so you don’t have to. So, while Jesus didn’t have one, maybe you should.
It’s utter blasphemy. Jesus didn’t die so that we don’t have to. He died to show us how to live.
The Jesus Way was never supposed to be easy, and it is a sin that we have made it so. Bonhoeffer wrote, ‘the path of discipleship is unutterably hard,’ and that it is. ‘To confess and testify to the truth of Jesus,’ he wrote, ‘and at the same time to love the enemies of the truth, his enemies and ours, and to love them with the infinite love of Jesus Christ, is indeed a narrow way. To believe the promise of Jesus that his followers will possess the earth, and at the same time to face our enemies unarmed and defenseless, preferring to incur injustice rather than do wrong ourselves, is indeed a narrow way.’ But it is the way to which we have been called. In the early church, it was common for new disciples to be asked, as they joined the community, whether they were willing to die for Jesus. I don’t suppose that would be considered good marketing these days. But the hard truth is that until a person becomes willing to give up their life for Jesus and his way, they aren’t really following him. He said it himself: you cannot be his disciple unless you are willing to take up your cross.
I don’t mean to make myself sound like a brave saint. In all honesty, I get nervous writing like this. I do not seek martyrdom. But the path of discipleship does, for some, require it. And I, like anyone who desires to follow Jesus, must accept this. We cannot meet curses with more curses, hurt with more hurt, hate with more hate, violence with more violence. We face the world armed only with the weapons of prayer and unlimited love. As Athanasius of Alexandria said in the 4th Century AD, ‘Christians, instead of arming themselves with swords, extend their hands in prayer.’
Mr. Wickham, you have thrown down the gauntlet, and for that I thank you. You have challenged the Church, you have challenged me, to commit once again to the call of Jesus. And so, begging your pardon for using your words once more, I end with this:
I choose surrender
I choose to love
Oh, God my Savior,
You’ll always be enough
I choose forgiveness
I choose grace
I choose to worship
No matter what I face
I follow Jesus
I follow Jesus
He wore my sin, I’ll gladly wear his name
He is the treasure
He is the answer
Oh, I choose the Jesus way
I hope all reading this do too.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent