Born Crucified

Dear Trekker,

When we feel as if the Good News is about to explode in our gut, and we simply must tell someone or write about it, one realizes quickly there are some intriguing statements in Scripture which are difficult and challenging to explain or understand. A statement by the Apostle Paul to the 1st Century church in Galatia certainly falls into this category: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, (yet) Christ lives in me. The life I live (now) in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Recently, the Spirit drew me back to a book I discovered in college entitled “Born Crucified”. Written by L.E. Maxwell, president of Prairie Bible Institute, published in 1946, out of print since 2002, the theme of the book is the statement of St. Paul. (I was responsible recently for buying up all the 2002 copies from a huge publishing house in the USA, but I don’t want to get ahead of my story.)

As we are in the count down for our return to the USA from Germany, we have just concluded a major staff conference where I was led to share some personal thoughts and considerations on this theme, as well as passing on the book, reprinted under the new title, “Embraced by the Cross”.

To most in today’s world, the “Born Crucified” title likely is counter cultural, politically incorrect and virtually an oxymoron. Life is what you make of it. Pull yourself up by your boot straps. And if religion is an element, God doesn’t want you sick, penniless, or lacking anything. “Accepting Jesus” is not only one’s ticket to heaven, it is the ticket to the ‘good life’ here on planet earth.

Well, yes and no! Maxwell, in the book’s preface, quotes a missionary from Africa: “If only all of our missionaries had this teaching, it would be the solution of many of our difficulties on the field.” I recall vividly being told years ago by a dear missionary veteran why most people return to their home country after their first term on the field: “they can’t adjust to everyday life with their colleagues in the mission compound.” Ministry’s great challenge is getting along with others, no question about it.

The abundant life is not always peaches and cream! Could this be because of misunderstandings of the nature of that Life in Jesus? Frankly, I believe the Apostle was onto a secret when he exclaimed, “I am crucified with Christ”, the same secret the Lifegiver Himself revealed when he said, “If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.” Similar is the rich metaphor Jesus used: “…unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

Easter Sunday resurrection could only take place after the horrible crucifixion on Good Friday. Hence, the abundant life for us today is directly proportional to our death. Trekker, God is always seeking to take us out of the ordinary hum drum of a fallen word. Abundant living by and through God’s Spirit (“if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have ‘passed away’ (died), and all things have become new”) is tough to come by if we aren’t willing to “fall to the ground” and die. We don’t want to serve and cause another to profit at the expense of oneself? Okay, but then we will never realize who we can be in our new skin of Jesus!

I shared some thoughts with our young staff across Europe who are loving military kids, of what it means to me to be “born crucified”. Let me table them for us, trekker! May you and I learn that living out crucifixion of self daily (St. Paul said “acting as if you are dead to sin and its dominion over you”) may be the master key to unleashing the greatest power known to man, the love of God.

First, if crucified, one’s life is in the hands of others. We have submitted to the authority and control of others. We have no say about anything. We are in submission totally when crucified. Second, if one is not in control as he ‘hangs on a cross”, one is useless in and of themselves. “In my flesh dwells no good thing” attitude! Hence, one simply shows up at the cross, a body to be nailed to it, following in the steps of Jesus. Thirdly, one crucified is utterly alone, rejected, a “person of sorrow”. Loneliness on the cross is surely loneliness like no other. Fourthly, a person crucified is utterly exposed! No proprieties, no dignities! Rights? None! Abject humiliation! Fifth, one crucified has no personal agenda. He is totally dependent on others as to how long he hangs, suffers and endures a slow death. Crucifixion may not be done and over with quickly! It is painful and cruel to the body. It is painful and cruel to the ego, to our self-image, to our pride. There are no future plans about anything. Finally, crucifixion means death and silence. Jim Meredith dies! The ripples in life’s pool merge into stillness as if life had never even occurred. Dead… until resurrected!

Bad news becomes good news! The heart of the good news is that we live again. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a comin! “Whoever finds his life will (must) lose it (first), and whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it.”

Trekker, I’ve got to be honest. The Christian life is not an invitation to ask God to help you be all that you can be! The honorable life is first an invitation to die and permit God to remake you into His image before sin and muck and crud (read self ambition, greed, lust, pride, naked self interest, envy, etc) entered the human scene and messed us up so badly we think our sinful, alienated state is normal, if we think about it at all. If we die, the Lifegiver can make us supernaturally natural and naturally supernatural. Have you ever noticed how some folks are “freed up”? They don’t worry about what others think of them; they are focused, marching to a different Drummer, and a different beat.

At the conference, I had the occasion to reflect on the life of John Wesley, St. Patrick and William Wilberforce, as my good friend, Roger Nelson portrayed these three great men of Christian history. Each lived crucified lives, and each was resurrected to change the course of history. As I view God at work in other’s lives and my own, I continually say, “Why not me?” What can God do when one is totally crucified and dedicated to God?

Trekker, how far can we climb when we climb for His glory and not our own? How far can we “go” when we “die”, carry our cross, and offer the cross to others? If we don’t offer it to others, we offer them nothing, for no cross, no crown. Stay faithful trekker. It’s too soon to quit if we have already “died”!

Your friendly trekker,

Jim Meredith