All of us have principles that we live our lives
by. Whether we could put them into words or not, whether we’re even aware
of all of them or not, we all have these principles. Ideally, at least,
they’re good principles. Things like honesty. Integrity.
Love. Kindness. But whatever they are, whether they’re good
or bad, we all have these principles, and they guide the way we live our lives.
The thing is, though, that it’s easy to have principles in
the abstract. It’s easy to have principles when following those
principles does not cost us anything. It’s when there’s a cost to
following our principles that we find out how much those principles really mean
to us.
Take honesty as an example. Most of us would probably
agree, in the abstract, that being honest is a good thing. But have you
ever been in a situation where telling the truth was really not a very
convenient thing? Have you ever been in a situation where being honest
could get you into trouble, and where telling a lie or even a half-truth or
even just avoiding telling the whole truth would make things a whole lot easier
for you?
I would think a lot of us have been in that position at one
time or another. And when we are, that’s when we find out how important
that principle of honesty is to us. That’s when we have the chance to
prove that we really believe in honesty, as opposed to only believing in
honesty when it’s convenient for us.
When Jesus was on earth, he had principles that he lived
by. And one of those was non-violence. Jesus talked about it
several times. He said, “Love your enemies.” He said, “Pray for
those who persecute you.” Jesus said, “If someone slaps you on one cheek,
turn the other also.” Jesus said, “If someone takes your coat, do not
withhold your shirt.” Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
shall be called children of God.”
Jesus said all those things. And I have no doubt that
he meant them and that he lived by them. But it’s easy to believe in
non-violence in the abstract. In today’s Bible reading, Jesus is in a
situation where sticking to that principle of non-violence is going to cause
him a lot of problems. He’s in a situation where he had the chance to
prove he really believes in non-violence, as opposed to only believing in
non-violence when it’s convenient for him.
Judas comes up to Jesus in Gethsemane. The disciples
are there too, of course. But so are what’s described as “a large crowd
armed with swords and clubs”, which the chief priests and elders had sent to
come and arrest Jesus.
Jesus knew they were coming. We talked last week
about how Jesus knew he was about to be arrested, tortured, and killed.
He prayed to be allowed to avoid it, but he prayed in the end for God’s
will to be done. And now, here it is. The guys with swords and
clubs are there. And the disciples are there. And some of them have
swords, too.
If you or I were there as onlookers, we’d have expected a
fight. The chief priests and elders expected a fight. The disciples
expected a fight. That’s why there were all those people with swords and
clubs. Everyone there expected the arrest of Jesus to be a really violent
thing.
And it had to be tempting to Jesus to let it happen that
way. For one thing, it’s a natural human tendency to fight back when
we’re attacked. And again, Jesus was fully human as well as being fully
divine. He felt that desire to fight back just as much as you or I would
feel it if we were in that situation.
For another thing, the disciples wanted a fight.
Remember a couple of weeks ago, when we talked about how all the
disciples said they would die rather than disown Jesus? This is the kind
of thing they were thinking about. They were willing to die in a fight,
in a battle. They would defend Jesus to the death. In fact, it
sounds like it was one of the disciples who actually struck the first blow.
Matthew says, “One of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it
out, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.”
We don’t know what would’ve happened if there had been a
fight. Maybe Jesus’ disciples would’ve won. Maybe, even if they’d
lost, Jesus could’ve gotten away in the confusion. Even if Jesus had been
killed, at least he would’ve avoided the torture and died an easier death.
It had to be very tempting for Jesus to allow the fight to
happen. But he did not. And the reason why is what we talked about
last week. Jesus’ heart was aligned with God’s heart. Yes, Jesus
had a principle of non-violence, but there was something going on here that was
more important than that. Jesus’ number one principle was to do God’s
will. And Jesus knew that God’s will was not for there to be a fight.
Here’s how Jesus put it:
Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he
will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But
how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?
Jesus knew that the things that
were happening were only happening because God was allowing them to happen.
In fact, they were happening exactly in accordance with what the
Scriptures had said were going to happen. If God the Father wanted to
stop these things from happening, they would have been stopped. Jesus
knew things were supposed to happen this way. If Jesus had allowed there
to be a fight, it would have been a fight against God’s will. And Jesus
had determined that he was not going to fight against God’s will. Again,
Jesus had a principle of non-violence, but more importantly, his number one
principle was following God’s will. And he was going to uphold that
principle, no matter what the consequences were. He was going to uphold
that principle even if it meant his own death on earth.
So here are the questions you
and I have to answer. Regardless of what our principles are, is our
number one principle to follow God’s will? And are we willing to uphold
that principle, no matter what the consequences are for us?
It gets back to what we said at
the beginning of this message. It’s easy to say yes in the abstract.
It’s easy to say that our number one principle is following God’s will
when following God’s will does not cost us anything. It’s only when
there’s a cost to following God’s will that we find out just how important
following God’s will is to us.
Jesus tried to tell the
disciples about that cost. He did it many times over the course of his
ministry. He told them that anyone who followed him had to be willing to
give up everything else. He told them that anyone who followed him needed
to be ready to take up a cross to follow him. And the disciples all said,
yes, of course, we’ll do that. We’ll follow you. But here, when the
crunch came, they could not do it. The last sentence of our reading for
today says “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled”, just as Jesus had
told them that they would.
There was a cost for the disciples to follow Jesus.
There’s a cost for you and I to follow Jesus, too. We may not be
asked to give up our physical lives for Jesus. We may be, though.
There are people who are, all the time. There are places in the
world where you can be killed just for saying that you are a follower of Jesus.
Most of us probably won’t face that. But I think
there’s another sense in which we’re asked to give up our lives for Jesus.
It gets back, again, to what we talked about last week--following God’s
heart rather than following our own heart. Any time we do what we know
God wants us to do, rather than what we would like to do, we’re giving up a bit
of our lives for Jesus. Any time we go where we know God wants us to go,
rather than going where we’d like to go, or even just staying where we are,
we’re giving up a bit of our lives for Jesus. Any time we say what we
know God wants us to say, rather than saying something else or just staying
silent, we’re giving up a bit of our lives for Jesus. And if we do those
things constantly, consistently, over a long period of time, pretty soon we’ll
discover that we have, in a sense, given up our lives, or a large part of them,
anyway, to follow Jesus Christ.
So again, we come back to those questions. Regardless
of what our principles are, is our number one principle to follow God’s will?
And are we willing to uphold that principle, no matter what the
consequences are for us? Are we willing to give up our lives, whether all
at once or a bit at a time, for Jesus Christ?
It’s not something to just answer now. We need to
answer that question every day. Sometimes we need to answer it several
times a day. Because these chances to prove whether we believe in our
principles come up lots of times. Sometimes they come when we don’t
expect it. Sometimes they come when we’re not even thinking about it.
But we know those chances will come.
Jesus showed us the way.
If our heart is aligned with God’s heart, our number one principle will
be to follow God’s will. And then, we will be able to give up our lives
for Jesus, whether all at once or a bit at a time.
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