Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
John 12:27–28a (NIV)
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
CONSIDER THIS
Let's begin by remembering our framework: the cross, my cross, our crosses.
While we are at it, let's also remember this statement from Saturday's reading: The cross is the weight of the glory of the love of God for the whole world, beginning with me. This is why the first prayer of the cross is so important:
Father, glorify your name!”
So what is my cross? It is the weight of the glory of the love of God for me. I like the way Galatians 2:20 expresses it:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
My sin is crucified with Christ. I am forgiven, cleansed, and pardoned. It is as if I never sinned. This can be easier to believe than to actually receive. Why? Because along with letting go of our sin, we must also let go of our righteousness. My sin is all the ways I destroy my sense of worth as a human being. My righteousness is all the ways I try and recover that sense of worth. Just as our failures are no longer a mark against us, so our successes are no longer a mark in our favor. Our entire system of ledger-keeping must die.
When the cross becomes my cross, I live in the economy of grace, free of the system of condemnation and commendation. I live under the weight of the glory of the unconditional, unmerited, unwavering love of God—which to experience is to truly live.
Here's the kicker. Because Jesus carried the weight of the cross, we experience the weightlessness of it. When we can finally let go of all our disqualifications (which is easier) and lay down all our qualifications (which is much harder), we can finally experience being embraced for who we most deeply and truly are. There's more. We can finally set others free from the prison of our condemnation and commendation and embrace them for who they most deeply and truly are. To the extent we live in the system of condemnation and commendation, we impose that on others.
The cross becomes my cross when I take up my cross and follow Jesus, which means seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and leaving behind the kingdom of the world. Here, there is no guilt or shame, no condemnation or commendation. Again, Paul's word to the Galatians captures it:
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal. 6:14)
Finally, there are our crosses. Our crosses come to us in those places where the ways of the kingdom clash with the ways of the world and call on us to make difficult decisions. They usually involve the profound surrender of our self-interest and often come at great personal cost. Once the cross becomes my cross, our little crosses (great and small) become the proving grounds where we learn the ways of descent, death, resurrection, and ascension. In this way, this first prayer of the cross becomes actualized in our lives as our Father brings great glory to his name.
These little crosses become the everyday opportunities to lift up the prayer for glory, beginning with an honest assessment of the challenge:
“Now my soul is troubled . . .
Realizing the real decision facing us:
. . . and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?
Remembering who we are and why we are here:
No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
And abandoning oneself to the mystery—claiming the cross as my cross in an act of absolute trust, declaring:
Father, glorify your name!”
This is the agonizing and astonishing pathway whereby we are transformed from one degree of glory to the next.
Once again, from the top, this time with feeling:
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
THE PRAYER FOR PRAYER
Almighty Ascended Lord Jesus Christ, you are high and exalted yet nearer than our breath. You are the way of the cross. Lead me ever deeper into this way of making your cross my cross so that my many little crosses become places for the demonstration of your glory. Father, glorify your name! Praying in the name of Jesus. Amen.
