The Cross Meets our Inner-Fears

Last week I was meeting with a very capable and gifted student who was struggling with paralyzing self-doubt. He was afraid to take risks because he was afraid he might fall short, be exposed as a failure.

Most often in a situation like this conversation, the response of the listener is to tally up as many happy thoughts about the poor struggler as we can possibly muster. We might even exagerate a little bit to bolster their confidence and help move them past their fear. Let me suggest to you that the reality of the cross suggests quite a different response.

The reality of the cross--the historical fact that God had to come and die for you an for me--confirms every worst fear about ourselves. We are in fact failures. We are, in fact, incapable of measuring up, or overcoming our biggest obstacles, or of being accepted by others and God. The cross takes all our attempts of living a life filled by shallow pretenses and props and exposes them for what they are: a sham. All of our worst fears about ourselves are exposed and confirmed at the cross.

But the good news is that because of the empty tomb, none of that really matters any more.

We spend most of our lives living as if the cross didn't really happen, as if it didn't expose us to be real sinners with real brokenness. Occassionally we come face to face with reality but then we become paralyzed by it, undone by who we really are. In so doing we live as if the resurrection had never happened.

But the reality is that in this new Kingdom economy, the cross exposes us as failures and the empty tomb offers us a new way of life where that no longer matters. Your life is no longer contingent on your competency or ability. You died. And your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, you will also appear with him in glory. (that's straight-up out of Colossians 3).

So we've been exposed as miserable failures--what a relief to not have to pretend any more! And even better, we've been offered a completely new way of life that is no longer contingent on the old economy of performance, failure, or personal abilities. Those things still matter, but they are no longer the epicenter of our reality.

That's the good news of the gospel as it applies to our deepest inner fears, self-doubt, and struggle. Attempts at re-propping each other up with lists of positive attributes, however well-intentioned, will only result in yet another fall in the near future--it still leaves us condemned to live out a value system that we can't possibly 'win' in. The cross and empty tomb are real strong medicine for broken and messy people. It re-aligns us with a hope that is permanent and an entirely new way of thinking and life that frees us to live as we truly are--warts and all.