The Bungee Cord

Hello,

If you ask Google, “How many times did Jesus say, ‘Follow me,’?” It will tell you that Jesus said, “Follow me,” twenty-one times. Most often this instruction of Jesus refers to a pattern of discipleship and joining Jesus in a cascade of grace. But these last couple of days I have been working with a log splitter, splitting logs from trees that have either fallen down or were taken down on our property. And I have come to see that when Jesus says, “Follow me,” sometimes he is doing so as a mighty log splitter.

In Matthew 16 Jesus tells his disciples that suffering and death lie ahead of him. Peter, the disciple that seems to have been the most reactive said to Jesus, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Although Peter is often maligned for his response, it seems to me that his response is a common response when struggles and suffering stare us in the face. Most of us, I think, tend to stop dead in our tracks in the face of doom that is around the corner. Why walk into trouble? It is safe where we are. Hunker down, find a bunker and stay put.

But Jesus knew, and you and I know, that doing so creates a prison of fear. We live in constant fear that the struggles might just make their way around the corner. Or we worry, like actors in scary movies, that if we walk into a dark alley, we will be greeted by a hockey mask wearing man wielding a chain saw. When we live under the threat of terror, it is a life that is lived sitting on the edge of one’s seat. Anxiety smothers peace. I think that this is what Jesus meant when he said, “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?”

However, to his disciples and us, as we face the struggles and suffering ahead of us, he says, “Follow me,” and with the power of a log splitter he presses directly into the struggles ahead. Like a hydraulic blade, Jesus inched his way into the suffering ahead of him, and even into the barrier of death, and on Golgatha’s hill he, on the splitting wedge of the cross, plunged death’s stump. And on Easter morning he split apart death and every other suffering that might be poised to crush us when Jesus walked out of the grave.

When Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me,” he was speaking like a mighty log splitter whose splitting edge was the cross, and was cheering us on to follow him in like manner through the split that he had just made. And as we follow his log splitting lead, we will see the powerlessness of the struggles that once loomed. Triumphantly and mockingly, we find ourselves singing, “Death where is they victory? Death where is they sting?”

It is when we pass through the valley of the shadow of death that peace and joy is found, for it is there that we live with the confidence of knowing that we are watched over and led by a shepherd who leads like a log splitter!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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