The radical life of Christianity is a life that sits outside the gate of comfort and expectations that people have of us. It is what calls the missionary to leave home. It is to suffer not needlessly or because of our stupidity but because of a cause. But it is also to find ourselves not enjoying our best life right now. It is when the years behind us were better than the ones we are experiencing right now. The self-help world that we live in proclaims a message to consider ourselves, pursue happiness, be the best version of ourselves and find the true you and live out your identity freely. This is not that path. There are many on this path leading away from that world who have no answers, those carrying disability and sicknesses that they never asked for, those with more questions than answers; those persecuted for simply believing in Jesus who suffered outside the city gate. And that is the radical call. How is that possible? Only because of Jesus. Only because of another place.
Jesus died outside for those inside. He did it to transform the holy within the Holy City and open the path to a new city.
“Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13 v 13-14)
Jesus is not outside the camp hanging on the cross. He is of course ascended on high! So this instruction is not literal for us anymore than it was when it was written for these Jewish Christians. The once for all sacrifice has been given.
But followers of Jesus do go outside the camp and we do bear the disgrace that He bore for us. This is the radical call. To bear the same disgrace. To realise that this city is not going to last. The best that this world can offer us and much of that can be amazing is only temporary. It pales into insignificance for the life that is to come. Christ did not die so that we can now live confident lives in this world and secure as much as we can from it. But it was to give us a new confidence that we have a future that goes beyond the troubles of our world, the disease and poverty, the pain and trauma and yet instead of trying to sugar-coat those experiences it calls us to do something to help those going through those experiences. It is to commit to a variety of self-less acts so that we can pick others up on this road outside the camp. A Ukrainian friend posted on social media yesterday that it had been 2 years since she was helped to leave Ukraine during the start of the invasion and how the church in Northern Ireland helped her so much. I heard a story this week of a lady who had been traumatised by the sexual abuse she had received as a young person became a successful lawyer to bring to justice those who commit such heinous crimes. I also heard of a Franciscan priest who prays and fasts interceding for others for 2 weeks every month.
I began to leave the camp when I was 8 years of age and gave my heart to Jesus; I continued when I reached 18yrs and began to hear the call of God; when I was 38yrs I heard the call to a 40 day prayer and fasting period and now at 58yrs I am still pursuing the path outside the camp wondering where it will take me. What about you?
Missions Paul 