The Laying Aside of Will: Part I

I often cringe when I hear Christians using "Christian speak." I wonder if they truly know what they are saying, is there really a definition, a meaning at the core of their words? I wonder if what they are saying is actually a phrase or paraphrase from scripture or if it is some new power phrase developed to match and describe the newest trend in "being Christian?"

I was in a gathering of believers a while back, when someone began speaking about being "crucified with Christ," and "laying it all at the foot of the cross." I became very uneasy and a tad disgusted-- "Here it goes again," I thought. "Does anybody know, does she know what she is saying?" "Why can't she just use English and not evangelical Christian-ese?" Her words sounded trite.

Later, I was mulling those words over again. I was examining the picture her words drew in my mind and it came to me (admittedly, I might be slow) that being crucified with Christ has mostly to do with will, not with persecution (though it might). I also know that similar phrases appear in scripture, but somehow when they emanate from the mouths and pens of the disciples, they don't sound trite.

In the act of crucifixion, the Roman's carried out the will of the people and of the emperor. In the killing of Jesus by means of crucifixion, the Roman's exercised this collective will. The surprise is that at any moment, from the betrayal of Judas, to the last nail being driven through His flesh into wood, Jesus could have exercised his own will and divine power and stopped his death and his suffering.

He did not.

From the moment his mother accepted her role as unwed, virgin mother, to Joseph keeping Mary as his wife, to the spear in Jesus' side, human will was standing aside and accepting the will of the Father in Heaven.

The crucifixion is a powerful picture of this. Every betrayal, every mocking word, every raising of the guard's arm as Jesus was flogged, every step he took from the center of town to Galgatha, every rock that was thrown, the ropes that bound his hands and feet to the cross and finally, finally, the iron spikes that pierced his flesh and the flesh of the wood, it is a picture of human will laid aside and replaced with divine.

Especially those spikes. Would not the ropes have been sufficient to bind him to the wood? The spikes ensured, beyond a doubt or divine intervention, the cross was going to hold the man and the man was going to die. His will was replaced with God's and the iron spikes are a sign of the fullness of his surrender.

We are called to nothing less.

Ooof.

Mulling all this over,
k8t
k8t(at)faceofagirl(dot)com
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