Some actors, musicians and speakers have stage fright; others approach the stage or podium with otherwordly confidence. Whether you speak or act regularly or not, no doubt, you have had an encounter with public speaking. When I first began speaking and preaching, I was quite nervous and very prayerful. As more opportunities came along, I had to fight through self-confidence to speak out of God-confidence. It has struck me recently that in my approach to living, I generally do not have the same struggle. I tend to live out of self-confidence and tack God on for extra potency. Strangely, speaking and living publicly have a fair amount in common.
I believe it was Shakespeare that said “Life is a stage.” It was that fine playwright that spoke these words through Macbeth: “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” In our approach to life, some of strut and some of us fret; some of us bound out of bed with otherwordly confidence and others of us slowly, even frightfully peel back the sheets, fretly sliding off the edge of our mattress into the unknown of a new day. Whether we tend to confidently strut or frightfully fret, we are all in need of guidance for walking well in public life.
Many of us have secretly bought into the idea that for the Christian there is a private and public life. I find no such division in the life and world view book called the Bible or among people whom I respect. All that we do is on display, before an omniscient God and eventually before all men. If God is ever-watching, what does he require? In all aspects of life he requires imitatio Christi–the imitation of Christ. A calling too often reduced to step-by-step methods. To imitate Christ means to imitate Paul. If I am reluctant to imitate Paul, how much more Jesus? Paul calls us to foolishness, weakness, dishonor and death:
For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. . .I urge you, then, be imitators of me.
These verses are pressing into me from all sides with unbearable pressure. I do not want to be foolish, weak, or held in disrepute. I want to have the answers, to overcome any obstacle and to privately receive the praise while publically dismissing it with hollow humility. I confess. I want to be wise, to be strong, to be honored. I want to possess theological acumen, be weak only on my terms, and have a successful churchplant and ministry. I do not want to become a spectacle before men and angels. I do not want to imitate Paul, to imitate Jesus, to bear my cross.
Nevertheless, God is making me into a spectacle. The Greek word can actually be translated “theatre.” I’m on the stage of God’s redemptive play, a play whose plot includes his change agenda for my life, to change me into Him. But like any good story, there is conflict. I am pulled towards acting for the audience, for the applause of the masses instead of the honor of playwright. Instead of making his drama famous, I want to publish my own books and have my own ecclesiastical success. I want to be a successful father, pastor, and author. God will not let me strut. Too much is at stake.
If I strut, I demonstrate that I overestimate my part in this redemptive drama. If I fret, I underestimate my part in the profound work of redemption. Either way we do not honor the Author of this grand Story. Instead, God in Christ has called me by his Spirit to a life of awesome anonymity. To find meaning and fulfillment in imitating Jesus through knowing him in his life, suffering, death, and resurrection.
Perhaps more than ever, I want to simultaneously have Christ but not the cross, to avoid the suffering and death, but obtain the resurrection. This is not spectacle living. God would have me neither leave the stage nor write my own script; instead, he is calling me deeper into the conflict of my life: to embrace the difficulties of no-name churchplanting, full-time bowling.com, limited ministry, conflicted emotions over a cholic daughter, and no-notarity writing.
Jesus wants me to circumscribe my story within His story, a story marked with suffering and joy, with death to self and life to God. By remaining on the stage and embracing a spectac-ular life, I will be led into the Christ-conforming climax of my story, one that promises consummation and glory beyond my wildest dreams, glory of the playwright and the eternal good for the world.
To that end, I cry out for grace to live a public life of foolishness, weakness, and disrepute as I follow Jesus.
Among shorter works on Jesus, God Crucified by Richard Bauckham is easily the most profound and informative book I have ever read. The book revolves around the concept of monotheistic christology, a term coined by N. T. Wright in Climax of the Covenant. Bauckham and Wright read the New Testament with Jewish lenses, seeing and hearing what Paul meant when he writes that Jesus is Lord (read=YHWH).
