Lent, Day 34: WE ARE GOING UP TO JERUSALEM

Mark 10:32-34

The cross was in His near future, and Jesus knew it.  Along the way He sought to share with His twelve disciples what awaited Him.  They never really got it until after His resurrection, but Jesus continued to lead His disciples into the truth as to what lay ahead.  He also knew the cross event for Him was going to be a cross event for His followers, too.  A bit later, Jesus asked two of His disciples. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized” (Mark 10:38).  It was going to be a harrowing experience for the disciples, one that would either make them or break them.  

As we journey through Lent, I am wondering if Jesus is also asking us, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”. I know the question speaks loudly into my life and causes me to squirm a little bit. Discipleship that involves a cross is no shallow discipleship.  This demands soul searching and prayer, and honest self-talk.  In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” There is nothing casual about following Jesus.  This led Isaac Watts to write of God’s love, 

Love so Amazing, so divine. 

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

How committed to Jesus am I?  How willing am I to give “my soul, my life, my all,” to God’s amazing love?  I read about a lady who went to her pastor one day and asked, “Will you please tell me in a word what your idea of discipleship is?”  The pastor held out a blank sheet of paper and said to her, “It is to sign your name at the bottom of this blank sheet, and to let God fill it in as He wills.”  Again I ask how willing am I to give “my soul, my life, my all” to God’s amazing love?

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Issac Watts, 1707

Can you sing, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”?  How shall you and I respond to God amazing love today?  

May God help us to sign the blank sheet of paper, and let God fill it in as He will.