What I Write About

I write about the infinite number of intersections between every day life and the good news of the God who has come to get us.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The Verdict on Our Strategies

But here's the deal for us if we're honest with ourselves: none of these strategies actually works. No amount of partying or religious stuff or trying to save the world or grade point average puts enough distance between us and our guilt and shame. It only takes a split-second of a memory, a photo, a smell, a phrase or word and it all comes crashing back on us, doesn't it?

All our strategies don't work. If it's all on us and if we're left to our own devices, then we're stuck. We're dead, actually.

But here's the good news: it's not all on us.

The earliest Christian creed was "Jesus is Lord." In context, this was a subversive political statement--"Caesar is Lord" was the creed of the Roman Empire. In our context today, you know who's crowned as Lord? You are. I am. Western culture has taken the autonomous individual consumer and attempted to make them--you and me--Lord.

The Christian story has a fresh invitation to you and to me tonight: it's not all about you. Jesus is Lord, not you. And that's good news because that means that it's not all on you to try to silence the voices of guilt and shame.

To live under the gracious umbrella of the Lordship of Christ is to be freed from the onerous and impossible task of trying to take make up for your past. If Jesus is Lord, then you no longer have the last word on you; Jesus does. If Jesus is Lord then he is Lord over all of you: present, past, and future. If Jesus is Lord then your life is not your own and your future is not yours to worry about and your past is not yours, not even yours to regret.

The solution to all our guilt and shame is not more work, but rather a cessation of work. Freedom is found in submission. Submission to the Lordship of Christ. That's the good news of the Christian story. That's the invitation that all of us are called to respond to.

3 comments:

Bonnie said...

Well said, Alex ! Who knew you'd grow up to be so smart !? :)

Laura said...

Good stuff, AK...really good stuff.

Marshall Benbow said...

Did I hear some Deddo in there? Well done, bro!