"But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.' Isaiah 53:5-6 NLT
The crowd hailed Jesus as "the King who comes in the name of the Lord" as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday. But in less than a week, Jesus was betrayed by one of his close disciples, deserted by his other disciples and condemned by the crowd who were manipulated by the religious leaders to demand his death by crucifixion. The crucified Christ is the Risen Christ to show us the way to eternal life through suffering and persecution.
John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus as the Lamb of God who came to deliver us from the sin of slavery:
"The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" John 1:29 NKJV
To follow Jesus is to be on a journey of becoming the sacrificial lambs of God to help people to turn back to God and to live a life that is centered on God. The world badly needs to see that Christ has truly risen in the lives of those who are called Christians. Christians who are living in the kingdom of heaven in here and now with the Prince of Peace. The world needs authentic witnesses of the Risen Christ whose hearts are filled with compassion and prepared to speak up for justice even if they will be persecuted.
Christians are not called to make converts to Christianity or to be salespersons for Christ. They are to be the light and salt so that others will be hungry and thirsty for God's unconditional agape love, the unspeakable joy of salvation and the peace of Christ which is beyond all human understanding. But to do so, we need to pay careful attention to the Risen Christ who is deep within our hearts in order that we will become "awakened and opened to God within, who enters into our heartbeat and our breathing, into our thoughts and emotion, our hearing, seeing, touching, and tasting."
This is the practice of contemplative prayer which Henri Nouwen describes as "the discipline by which we begin to 'see' the living God dwelling in our own hearts" and to recognise the Presence of God in the world. The objective of contemplative prayer is "not that we see God in the world, but that God-with-us recognises God in the world." Only then will we be empowered to endure suffering and to face persecution.
There are 4 ways to live in this fallen world. Firstly, we can live like a rat running the race to seek money and fame. We are then controlled by greed and we will see others as competitors who we need to get rid off. Secondly, we can live like a G. O. A. T. (Greatest Of All Time), driven by pride and forgetting that it is a hopeless to gain the whole world but to lose one's soul. Thirdly, we may be live like a lost S.H.E.E.P., blind to the wonder of Seeing Heaven Everyday in Every Person. We live in quiet desperation filled with anger and unforgiveness of our past and with guilt and fear for the future.
Fourthly, we can follow Christ to be the lambs of God who are the living sacrifices to bring love, joy and peace in a dark and broken world - to be peacemakers so that heaven can come on earth even if we are persecuted. To be a lamb of God is not to live a peaceful life that is without suffering but a life that is filled with the peace of God in the face of suffering and persecution. In fact Jesus warned his disciples that the world will hate them:
"I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do." John 17:14-16 NLT
The apostle Paul warned Timothy:
"Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil people and impostors will flourish. They will deceive others and will themselves be deceived." 2 Timothy 3:12-13 NLT
He also commended the Thessalonians for their endurance and faithfulness in the face of persecutions:
"We proudly tell God’s other churches about your endurance and faithfulness in all the persecutions and hardships you are suffering. And God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering. In his justice he will pay back those who persecute you." 2 Thessalonians 1:4-6 NLT
Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that one of the 'be-attitudes" to live in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is to suffer persecution for doing right:
"God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs." Matthew 5:10 NLT
The promise of the kingdom of heaven is bracketed by the first beatitude, blessed are the poor, and the last beatitude, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. The beatitudes are to help us cultivate the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self control to overcome guilt, fear and the seven cardinal sins of lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, gluttony and sloth.
We need the spirit of poverty to enter the kingdom and the spirit of mourning to be totally dependent on the power of the resurrection of Christ to deliver us from our slavery to sin. We need the spirit of meekness and to hunger and thirst for righteousness so that we will examine our hearts to understand our shadow selves in the wilderness of our lives. We need the spirit of compassion and the desire for purity to experience the wonder of God's presence and power in our daily lives.
And we need to be peacemakers to advance the kingdom of heaven here on earth and to promote peace, justice and godliness. As we do so, we need endurance and faithfulness to face persecution. The history of the church has shown that suffering and persecution turn Christians into the most powerful witnesses of the reality of the kingdom of heaven.
God is our loving Heavenly Father who is waiting patiently for us to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness so that we can find refuge from the storms of life and rest for our souls. Over the past year I was led to the discipline of contemplative prayer to seek the kingdom of heaven. It has helped me to understand and appreciate the importance of silence and solitude.
Contemplative prayer is the expression of our intention to seek the power and presence of God. It is not to empty our minds but it is to become aware of our negative thoughts and feelings of our shadow selves so that we can bring them to Christ for healing. In this time of enforced social distancing, all of us have a great opportunity to follow Jesus in the practice of silence, solitude and contemplative prayer. As we do so, we become the lambs of God, not to appease God, but to open our hearts and minds so that Holy Spirit may fall afresh on us:
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me
Melt me, mold me
Fill me, use me
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me
May we be streams of the endless river of righteous living through contemplative prayer so that the world will be covered by a mighty flood of justice.
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