When I served as vice president for Area B of the Texas District, I had the opportunity to lead devotions several times at our pastors’ conferences and theological convocations. In 2017, then District President Hennings invited me to lead one of the devotions at that year’s Theological Convocation. I had been having difficulty at seeing how divided our church body had become.
In the weeks and months before that convocation, I had been struggling with my own failures at working toward peace in our church body. Early in my ministry, I had inadvertently stumbled upon a website where “Lutheran conversations” were happening. Naively, I started reading some of the conversation threads on the website and was truly appalled at the way people spoke to each other. It was rough stuff. Verbal bombs and grenades were launched from both sides in seemingly unthinking ways.
I began sharing my thoughts on that website with the best of intentions. In spite of my attempts at irenics, before long, I began to respond in kind to any criticism sent my way. At the end of my involvement on that website, I was slinging the hash with the best – or should I say – with the worst of them. But then, I began to sense the Lord convicting me. I began to see my behavior as shameful and dishonoring to Christ. I was lobbing insults at people whom Jesus had atoned for through a horrible passion and a painful cross. These were brothers and sisters whom I was defaming.
Jesus shared an intimate conversation – one that really mattered – with his followers. It happened on the last evening before Jesus was crucified. It happened just before the Son of Man entered his glory – which, as you know – is not what the world thinks about when it hears the word glory. “Love one another,” said Jesus, “just as I have loved you, you are to love one another. This is how people will know that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another.” With his arrest, suffering and death less than a day away, one would image that Jesus would talk about things that really mattered. So, this “love one another message” must really be a BIG DEAL!
I’m not sure how it happens in other church bodies, but in mine – The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod – every three years or so, polarizing dialog surfaces and intensifies. Why? – Because every three years we have a national convention to elect leaders and to decide matters of concern to the church. We also have opportunities to worship and celebrate what God is doing, but what seems to predominate is the former and not the latter. Our conversations take on the character and begin to sound, and feel like what happens in the secular culture as we move toward our four-year presidential election cycle. I’m not sure how it has happened. Maybe it is the prevalence of social media. Maybe it is how easy it is to, from a virtual distance, let our most caustic comments surface. We have in our public interactions, at times, begun to mirror the culture rather than the cross.
When it happens in the church, there must be a power at work that is driving those interactions. It is the same power at work that has divided people from the beginning. The great dragon that knows how to create strife, quarrels, and wars seems to be driving our behaviors and words and interactions. No human is immune from that influence because we struggle with sin. We aspire to glory and believe that by wielding earthly power, as is done in the secular culture, we can prevail. So, do we advance the culture or the cross when we engage each other in these ways?
Jesus, the Lamb of God, calls us to a different standard than the culture. As followers of The Lamb, we know better, don’t we? Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel wrote the book, The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It. I read it several years ago. It’s a short read. But it is quite profound, especially for this sinner so easily enticed into the way of the dragon. Jamin and Strobel write about two ways of exercising power: wisdom from below, which is earthly, unspiritual, demonic; or power exercised with wisdom from above, that leads to peace. The way of the dragon or the way of the Lamb. The authors unpack how power is exercised in the church and lament that often, and imperceptibly, the way of the dragon is chosen.
Jesus is the example, and the Cross is the place where we need to meet. At the Cross, Jesus atoned for all of us – the people on the right, the left, and the middle. The Cross is the power of God. Saint Paul, writing to a church at war, writes, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1.17ff)
The cross is the way of the Lamb. Jesus certainly could have come in power but was born in a manger – the way of the Lamb. When the disciples were arguing about who was most important, Jesus talked about greatness being characterized by serving – the way of the Lamb. When James and John asked for the places of honor at Jesus’ right and his left – they were thinking about power; Jesus was thinking about a Cross – the way of the Lamb. When the disciples thought about glory, Jesus spoke about giving his life for the world and being lifted up and drawing all people to Himself – the way of the Lamb. When it came time to do the work of the most menial servant, Jesus took water and towel and washed the disciples’ feet – the way of the Lamb. When talk about greatness was being bandied about by the disciples, Jesus told them that to be great they needed to humble themselves like a child – the way of the Lamb. Don’t take the most important seat, instead find a lower place – the way of the Lamb. He could have called a legion of angels to come to his defense but chose instead to humble Himself – the way of the Lamb. Jesus said that He came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many – the way of the Lamb. He is the King, but rather than a throne and golden crown, he chose a Cross and crown of thorns – the way of the Lamb. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross – the way of the Lamb.
We’ve been loved with an everlasting love. We’ve been loved with a love that models the way of the Lamb. The way of the dragon has no place in our church. Wisdom from above - the way of the Lamb – leads to the peace that seems so elusive and yet, God offers us this in Christ Jesus. The culture or the cross? - Let's opt for the latter. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15.13) “Love one another – just as I have loved you, you are to love one another. This is how people will know that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another.”
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