Come and Die

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“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ [who loved me and gave himself for me] lives in me.” —Galatians 2:20

As they made their way up Mount Moriah, Isaac asked his father a question that should have brought a cold chill to Abraham’s heart. “‘The fire and wood are here,’ Isaac said, ‘but where is the lamb for the burnt offering’” (Genesis 22:7). But such was Abraham's faith in God that his next words were not words of dread, but words of profound trust: “Abraham answered, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son’” (22:8).

God’s instructions to Abraham to offer his only son as a burnt offering is one of the many scarlet threads of redemption that cover the pages of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Isaac, on his way to his death, is spared when God provides the ram caught in a nearby thicket. Blood is shed, but not Isaac’s.

Every breath that you and I take is one breath less. And any one could be our last. Like Isaac, we were on our way to our deaths. But God, rich in mercy, provided His own sacrifice, Jesus, to take our place. Blood was shed, but it wasn’t ours. It was the blood of Jesus.

Peter writes: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree...” (1 Peter 2:24). But there is more than just forgiveness of sins involved here. Oddly enough, at the cross we avoided one death to embrace another. The verse goes on: “...so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”

Jesus came to offer us life at His expense. John writes, quoting Jesus, “I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). But He also asks us to die to sin and to selfishness. Paul writes: “…count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires…but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life…” (Romans 6:11-13).

Jesus told His disciples that commitment came at a cost (Matthew 10:16-49).  “All men will hate you because of me…A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master…If the world hates you,” He warned, “…keep in mind that it hated me first” (Matthew 10:22, 24; John 15:18). He would model by His death what might be required some day of them. His call was a call to share His cross. It was a call to die: “…anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:28).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” (The Cost of Discipleship, 1937). Bonhoeffer was living in the United States at the beginning of the Second World War, but chose to return to Germany. He felt that he would have no right to help in the restoration of Christian life in Germany if he had not shared in the suffering of his own nation and her people.  Bonhoeffer not only lived what he believed but was executed in Germany in 1945, just before the end of the war, because of those beliefs. He was thirty-nine years old.

One of the many reasons Good Friday is an essential celebration is that it reminds us not only of Christ's death as our substitute, but it also reminds us that we have been spared so that we can die to sin and to self, so that we can live righteously and so that we can embrace personal sacrifice, as we walk in the way of Jesus.

What better time to renew that commitment to “die” and to live like Jesus than on the day set aside to remember what it cost Him to make living abundantly, and dying daily, possible.

Embracing Death

Morguefile

“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” —Philippians 2:8

In the space of one week three people I knew well, along with the stepfather of a friend, died.  Death isn’t usually so busy during an average week in my life. It was unsettling. But though we try hard to minimize it, death is inevitable. Even our language is designed to avoid its reality. We talk about people “passing away” or “promoted to glory” or “in a better place” or “with the angels.”

In a sense, death is the final frontier (with apologies to Star Trek fans) and we are not eager to talk about it, or to cross its boundaries. In some cultures even the mention of the word is frowned on just in case it invites “the grim reaper” (yet another way to avoid calling death what it is) to come and collect another trophy.

But Jesus embraced it. As God-become-Man He identified with us right to the last excruciating breath, crossing our final frontier just as we will someday cross it, but via suffering that we can only imagine. 

One of the big discussions of our generation has revolved around physician-assisted death—the right of people in extremis to legally end their lives at their own convenience. The argument is that when the end is inevitable and the pain is too much, people need to have the opportunity to end the suffering as quickly and efficiently as possible.

When we look at the cross we find a Saviour who “suffered” the cross and refused to excuse Himself from any of its torment. The Scriptures tell us that He would not even accept drugged wine to ease His pain (Matthew 27:34). The cheap wine given to the Roman soldiers would have been laced with something bitter such as myrrh or wormwood to dull His senses.

Matthew Poole commenting on this, writes: “Certain it is, that it was an ordinary favour they showed to dying persons, to give them some intoxicating potion, to make them less sensible of their pain. It is probable it was something of this nature; but our Saviour was not afraid to die, and so had no need of such an antidote against the pain of it; he refused it.”

He felt more than we will ever be called upon to feel and, as one commentator suggested, refused comfort so that we could find that comfort.

Jesus called death what it was, embraced it, and then crushed it so that we might never have to fear it.

Paul writes, quoting two Old Testament prophets: “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54b-57).