“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”(Gal 2:20).
Joseph was fleeing the war in Rwanda while genocide began. But he was not afraid of death: God had rescued Joseph physically and spiritually. Shelled by mortar fire and buried in the earth by the explosion, hunted like an animal, facing danger on many sides, he had come to the end of himself while meeting Jesus. He pledged his life to share the joy and truth of the gospel for the one who died for him. So although they were refugees themselves, Joseph and his parents, who were also Christians, hid and fed two women who were running two days ahead of a murderous posse.
Hearing that the killers were closing in, Joseph sent them on their way just in time. “Where are the women the people say you have?” they demanded. “What women?” He answered. The men left with threats and a reminder that Joseph and his family would be killed if they helped anyone from the hunted tribe. That week he was called to preach to the local Anglican Church. He chose as his text the story of creation from the book of Genesis. He preached forcefully that the killing was wrong; that in God’s eyes we are one people with the same blood; that they should help the fleeing tribe; and that murderers, without God’s grace, would go to a fiery hell for destroying the children of God made in his image.
He said all this in a culture that had become filled with the fear of death, where the gangs were using this fear to force others to join them and to silence all who opposed them. Though Joseph didn’t know it, the head of the posse was in the congregation as he preached. This man heard the word of God and was convicted of his sin. He cried out,
“I am a murderer: I have killed eight people!”
The congregation surrounded him, prayed for him, and counseled him. Joseph told him to share the message of Jesus with those in the posse. He did. The posse disbanded and many refugees were allowed to escape the country because the killers were changed from the inside out. Joseph was not afraid of death; what could they do to a man who had been “crucified with Christ,” who had already died to his old way of life and was now living out of the power of Jesus?
From the moment we wake up to reality, we are being attacked, bullied, and besieged by forces that want to keep us from what is true, good and beautiful. Most of all, these forces want to keep us separated from God. We awake to life in war. Worse yet, this war is even inside us--at the gates of our hearts.
Acknowledging the inner nature of the conflict, Paul writes,
I delight in the law of God in my inmost being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind…” (Rom 7:22-23)
The consequences are even more enormous than we think: what seemed like a threat to his physical life was for Joseph a fight over the destiny of his soul and the souls of those around him. Who does he belong to? Whom will he follow? Though it would, on some level, have been easier to give in to the devil who “prowls around like a roaring lion seeking some one to devour,” the Holy Spirit speaking through St. Peter charged Joseph and all Christians to “resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9). Why is suffering required? The logic of our suffering with Christ begins at the cross. There Jesus suffered and died with and for us emptying himself[i] and becoming a sin offering[ii]. He identifies himself with us dying the death we deserve so that we could be identified with him in the life he lived: a life of overcoming sin, flesh and the devil. How do we overcome? We do it in the power of Jesus. Maybe it would be better to say that he does it in us. Paul, summing up both our death to sin and our new life of victory writes the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.[iii]” How far on this road of suffering are we called to walk? To the end. The book of Revelation gives us a view of the saints who have made it to the end:
And they have conquered [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death (Rev 12:11).
What happens when fear the fear of death is taken away from a believer? He perseveres until the end. And in life or death, in victory or defeat, the life of Jesus is manifest in him.
Almighty God and Father, whose love is so great that you sent your son Jesus to die for us; enlighten the eyes of my heart that I may see Jesus victorious over sin and death, grant me grace to understand that I have been buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him in his resurrection, and give me such freedom from the fear of death that I might confess his name before all rulers of the earth and join him in triumph before you.
Among many good reminders, this convicts me to have courage in my daily choices. Strange how they become both so small (I don't realize their actual significance) and so big (I fear them more than I ought). God's children are called to do such a variety of things in the name of the Kingdom: whether sheltering refugees or daring to sit by the unapproachable lonely person in the cafeteria.
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