Read Free to Live: The Utter Relief of Holiness Online
Authors: John Eldredge
Tags: #Religion - Christian Life
Free to Live: The Utter Relief of Holiness (3 page)
We see here that it is not false humility. Jesus doesn’t cuddle up to flattery. “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity blah blah blah.” Most of us soften in the face of flattery, but not Jesus. Again, this is
so
rare among the rich and famous. Most leaders surround themselves with those who flatter them.
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick…So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere. (Luke 9:1, 6)
Now this is just extraordinary—Jesus has absolutely no need to be the center of the action. He sends his friends out to do the very things he does; he gives them a major role in his campaign. “You go do it. Do everything you see me doing.” This is humble and this is extraordinarily generous; Jesus is absolutely openhanded with his kingdom. There is no need for the whole thing to be always about him. He is absolutely delighted to share his kingdom with us. He later says, “Don’t be afraid little ones; your father is delighted to give you the kingdom.”
Most men get power and then crave more; as their stars rise they can’t bear to have others in the spotlight; they typically abuse the power they have; and in the end, it winds up crushing them and everyone around them. You recall the expression “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It was a lesson learned through the long soiled history of men and power. But then we have Jesus, who walks right through the snares as if they weren’t even there, handling immense power with casual grace.
But far and above the most revealing aspect of anyone’s character is how he handles people. Friends, I hope you understand this—the way a person handles others is the acid test of his true nature. How is Jesus with people? What’s he like to be around?
One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus intervened: “Let the children alone, don’t prevent them from coming to me. God’s kingdom is made up of people like these.” After laying hands on them, he left. (Matthew 19:13–14
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A simple story, very Sunday school. But we’ve made a precious moment out of it, and thus missed both the reality and the beauty. Our church held a meeting last week, and apparently child care wasn’t available, because the little ones were dashing up and down the halls and, once in a while, in and through the middle of the gathering. Most people tried to put a good face on it, but after several interruptions, you could feel the irritation. The mood shifted from
How cute
at the first interruption, to
That’s enough of that
at the third, to,
Little nuisance—where are your parents?
by romp number five. I indulged in the irritation myself. This is at the core of human nature, this thing in us that growls,
Do not mess with my program. Do not get in my way
. If you aren’t aware how deep this runs in you, how do you feel when people cut in the line at the market or the movies, cut you off on the highway, make it difficult for you to get your job done, or make it impossible for you to get some sleep? What angers us is almost always some version of
You are making my life even harder than it already is. Get out of the way.
Not Jesus. He welcomes intrusion.
In Luke’s version of the story, the disciples succeed in shooing off both parents and tykes, but Jesus “called them back.” Later Jesus passes two blind men on the road; they create a ruckus in order to get his attention. His handlers try to shut them up. But Jesus stops what he’s doing and gives them his undivided attention. Do you recall the wedding at Cana, where he turned water into wine? By Jesus’ own words, it is clear he had not intended to reveal himself at the time, in that way. But his mom asked, and the groom was in a tight spot, and the party would have died far too soon, so he does it anyway. To the tune of 180 gallons of wine! He’s such an immensely gracious person. I love him for that. I yearn to be like that.
Meanwhile in Capernaum, there was a certain official from the king’s court whose son was sick. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked that he come down and heal his son, who was on the brink of death. Jesus put him off: “Unless you people are dazzled by a miracle, you refuse to believe.” But the court official wouldn’t be put off. “Come down! It’s life or death for my son.” Jesus simply replied, “Go home. Your son lives.” On his way back, his servants intercepted him and announced, “Your son lives!” He asked them what time he began to get better. They said, “The fever broke yesterday afternoon at one o’clock.” The father knew that that was the very moment Jesus had said, “Your son lives.” (John 4:46–53
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What we see here is his kindness in spite of the fact that people don’t get him or the purpose of his coming. They aren’t putting their lives in his hands; they’re hoping for some help and that’s it. Jesus is clearly grieved by the fact that these people continue to ask for miracles but have no intention of becoming his followers. Yet he heals for them anyway. His immense goodness is what captures me. He is, after all, the one who said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). He’s probably also the only one who’s ever done it consistently.
On and on the stories go. Denied and abandoned by Peter, Jesus doesn’t hold it against him. Tortured mercilessly, he says, “Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they do.” Look, I think I can eventually get around to forgiving people—so long as they ask me to, apologize, and seem genuinely sorry. But Jesus forgives his executors before there’s even a hint of remorse.
Wouldn’t you love to live like that?
What you are seeing in any one of these stories is holiness. I think if anyone of us could have known Jesus personally, in that day, we would have loved his company—his ability to navigate difficult situations, to deal with people who didn’t know how to deal with him, engage the opposite sex, take on the religious leaders with the right spirit and attitude. It’s just astounding. One more thing—Jesus isn’t gutting it through life. There is no sense of him gritting his teeth, biting his tongue, none of that internal anguish most of us require to pull this off for a day or two. He is walking through it all with such grace and strength. He is living life as it was meant to be lived.
That’s
the utter relief of holiness.
And, oh, how utterly attractive it is.
Captivating
You can tell a lot about a person by his effect on others. What is he like to be around? What is the aftertaste he leaves in your mouth? Is this someone you’d want to take a long car ride with? We saw Zacchaeus’ reaction. Here are two more, from people quite different from each other and from Zacchaeus:
One of the Pharisees asked him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet. Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume. (Luke 7:36–38
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No comment of mine could add to the beauty of this moment. Nor to this one:
Two others, both criminals, were taken along with him for execution. When they got to the place called Skull Hill, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.” The people stood there staring at Jesus, and the ringleaders made faces, taunting, “He saved others. Let’s see him save himself! The Messiah of God—ha! The Chosen—ha!” The soldiers also came up and poked fun at him, making a game of it. They toasted him with sour wine: “So you’re King of the Jews! Save yourself!” Printed over him was a sign: this is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!” But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.” (Luke 23:32–43
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What is stunning to see in these brief accounts is that people who
knew
themselves to be anything but holy found the holiness of Jesus winsome, open-armed, and utterly compelling.
Is this how you have understood holiness?
It changes everything when you do.
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Now, for a far fuller encounter with Jesus, you’ll want to read
Beautiful Outlaw
. There I have an entire book to unveil what we have only a chapter for here. This is the glance from the sycamore; that is having Jesus over to spend a few weeks at your house.
I received this note from a friend last week:
I think it began with traffic, my response to traffic. The way people drive, how stupid they can be. I noticed I was having a pretty strong reaction to it.
You are such a *@#%! idiot
. It felt good, my reaction felt good; it felt justified. I could let some steam off. But then I began to notice a similar pattern at work. Somebody would send around one of those lame corporate emails, and it would be filled with such stupid decisions and backward ideas it would just fry me; I wanted to fire back. Sometimes I did. More often than not I’d just write the email and then delete it. Something was really pissed off inside of me. Then I saw it in my friendships, especially when people would let me down. I wanted to point out what they were doing; it felt the same as on the freeway. I wanted to fry them. I began to see that resentment was a pretty deep part of my experience in the world. When I’d hear of bad news that had struck someone, I wouldn’t feel compassion; I’d feel like,
Maybe now you’ll get your act together
. It was a horrible feeling. My God—am I such a bad person? I felt torn inside, like part of me was just hurt and another part of me was resentful. Why am I such an angry person? Why am I so resentful? It’s tearing me apart.
This is a horrible place to find yourself in. Substitute lust or envy, fear or resignation, compulsion of any kind, and you’ll find yourself saying words like these, I have no doubt.
My friend isn’t crying out for vengeance, or for dominance. He’s crying out for
goodness
. Our souls will never be right without it. That is why goodness is the healing of our humanity. It really is.
Another friend I’ll call Susan used to be quite an accomplished liar. All through her youth, but certainly in her teenage years, she was a compulsive liar. And the terrible thing is, she was very, very good at it. She has something close to a photographic memory—essential for a liar if she is never to be found out. She would lie to her parents about where she’d been; lie to her teachers as to why she’d missed class; lie to boys in order to gain their favor; lie to impress her friends. As I write these words, I am on the one hand deeply embarrassed for my friend, and on the other hand, it feels like I am describing someone else. It has been quite a few years now since Jesus Christ got hold of Susan’s life, and the thought of telling even the most “innocent white lie” is now repulsive to her. No, that’s not quite it; I think I could honestly say she simply isn’t even capable of it. She hates falsehood in any form. I love that about her. The professional liar can’t help but tell the truth these days.
My friend “Benny” was a drug dealer in his twenties. Hash, marijuana, cocaine, acid, amphetamines, barbiturates—you name it, he brokered it all. And made a killing. The guy was rolling in cash. Utterly bereft of conscience, indifferent to the devastation he was causing, Benny became rich by encouraging chemical dependencies in hundreds of people—addictions that destroyed many of their lives. “Most of my friends are dead,” Benny confessed one day. “The others are in mental wards. They overdosed.” Thirty years ago Jesus Christ took hold of Benny’s life in a fairly dramatic way, and now the pusher can’t bear to take an aspirin. He’s a kind, compassionate man who would do anything to see his friends restored. The money, the drugs, and the lifestyle that went with it all are simply gone. Vanished. “I don’t even remember that person anymore,” Benny says, grateful and humbled.
“David” was known as an upstanding member of his church and a generous philanthropist. His business acumen and Christian testimony won him positions on many boards of directors—a hospital, several ministries, the local Christian school his children attended. In his secret life, he visited prostitutes several times a week; he sat in seedy pornographic cinemas in the middle of the afternoon; he was thoroughly addicted to alcohol; he practiced a number of unethical business deals. The crash came hard. A colleague exposed David, and it pretty much destroyed his family. His wife was a daughter of missionaries, a saint if ever there was one. It broke her heart, and she spiraled into a three-year depression. One of his daughters became a prostitute herself. His son had a police record. And now? David is a humble, gentle man with no sexual addictions. He has been sober for three years; the thought of a drink makes him nauseated.
God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same line as the line of his son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. (Romans 8:29
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Before we go any further in our search, I need to make the offer of Christianity clear: There is a way to be good again. The hope of Christianity is that we get to live life like Jesus. That beautiful goodness can be ours. He can heal what has gone wrong deep inside each of us. The way he does this is to give us
his
goodness; impart it to us, almost like a blood transfusion or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. We get to live
his
life—that is, live each day by the power of his life within us. That’s the hope: you get to live that life. “But there is a reality of being in which all things are easy and plain,” wrote George MacDonald, “oneness, that is, with the Lord of life.” He makes us whole by making us holy. He makes us holy by making us whole.
Think of how you feel when you commit some offense—yell at your kids, lie to someone or hide the full truth, harbor resentment or bitterness toward a friend, indulge sexual or romantic fantasies over someone at work or their spouse; maybe you’ve been acting on those fantasies for three years now and it is tearing you apart. Whatever your regrets may be, think of how you feel when you commit these acts repeatedly, when you vow never to do it again and find yourself doing it moments later. And think of what an utter relief it would be to be free from the whole entangled nightmare. I mean to be so free that you’re not even disciplining yourself not to do these things anymore; you just don’t do them. You simply don’t struggle with whatever it is that haunts you; it’s not an issue.
That’s the utter relief of holiness. That’s what happens when the life of Jesus invades your life.