Courage, Cowardice, and Cost: The Law of Christ & the More Excellent Way (A New EP from FAI)
With a visceral sense of the hourglass emptying its last grains of sand, the One who shepherds our souls[1] sat down for the most significant dinner of the year—and, perhaps, of this age—with the young, immature, but (largely) sincere disciples who had followed Him, fascinated, for several years…save for one particular traitor, who was looking for a way to spit on the suggested worth of the Son of Man.[2] Yet Jesus did not shirk back, disengage, or withdraw; He finished well, and well enough that the best language John the Beloved could use to describe Jesus’ posture towards them was this loaded phrase:
“Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”[3]
To the end. All the way. Even now, He is committed to bringing us to the finish line of this age, thoroughly capable of finishing what He started.[4] It is this determination to love—and to love well—that has captured me, and served as the inspiration for the costly ep, now out on all platforms. And I am convinced these waters are the hardest to reach, these depths are the most difficult to find and survive. He does not cast pearls before swine,[5] and man is not known for trustworthiness in such mysteries.[6] Yet here we are, taken with the Man who meets us when we cannot find the words to pray, when our guts groan what we cannot voice,[7] who is so determined to wash us from our mud and mess and treason and addictions, so committed to speak better words over the lies we so doggedly believe, obey, and align ourselves to.[8] Incredibly, “it is for freedom Jesus has set us free,”[9] but we are bound by this freedom. “The lines have fallen to [us] in pleasant places,”[10] yet we may still despise them. We may, like the younger brother in the parable of prodigals, scorn our safety in our sonship for the alluring sirens in the “far country.”[11] We may, despite the glory of the liberty secured for us in Christ Jesus, become “entangled again in a yoke of bondage.”[12] Some dogs return to their vomit[13] because we don’t know what it is to eat better food,[14] and doubt we deserve it. And the Good Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to track down the wayward one[15] may well let us wander for a season. We won’t understand it all. Honestly, we’re not meant to.[16]
But we are met with these truths that are true enough they’ll survive for eternity, the words present in the Word before He uttered “Let there be light”:[17] We are loved by Him who is love, the kind of love that is so selfless and secure[18] it is strong enough to cast fear out of our hearts[19] with the same strength and confidence Jesus expelled Legion into a herd of swine,[20] by the same power that drew a dead man out of four days in the grave.[21] It is this love that governs us, that stewards our freedom; walking in it keeps us safely in the “pleasant places.”[22]
Yet—and this cannot be said emphatically enough—that does not mean life under the law of liberty will always be easy, or free of pain and grief. It will sometimes lead us into a back alley black eye in dark, shadowed streets.[23] But it does offer us an opportunity to receive experiential revelation of the God who redeems suffering, Who can rewrite the story with crimson ink and draw forth a redemptive ending.[24] Note: redemptive endings are not always happy endings. But He can (and will) up-end Hate’s schemes and secure the final victory.[25] It is here we find the invitation of the ages: to learn to let God love us in such a way we can then learn to love—and love well. To believe, hope, and bear all with the patient endurance that secures souls.[26] To “bear each other’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”[27] What is “the law of Christ”? What governing principle—that weighs the scales of our lives, deeds, and words—could be granted such a holy distinction: the law of the slaughtered King?
“A new command I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”[28]
This “more excellent way”[29] sets its gaze on the horizon of eternity. If “without vision, people perish,”[30] what happens to affection set to anything less than the “joy set before”[31] our Beloved before He subjected Himself to the lashings, the thorns, the fists, the sneers, the jeering crowds, the splintered planks, the rusty nails?[32] But what could happen if we postured ourselves like the ordinary man whose life invited the holy, costly call: “Yoke yourself in a covenant to one who will betray you.”[33] We are all Judas, we are all Gomer; but as our own stories are rewritten, as our own selves are conformed[34] and the Reflection we are designed to bear is restored,[35] we are fortified with the grace required to “Go again,”[36] and again, and again, and again, and again. If your brother sins against you seven times in a day, and returns with a spirit of repentance, then you do what Jesus does for you: you forgive him, seventy times seven.[37] You bear him up and fight like hell to get him to the finish line, from here to Kingdom Come, just like Jesus does for you. If you see him on the edge of a cliff, or falling over into the ravine of sin, you do everything in your power to pull him back to level ground.[38] You find those oppressed, who cannot defend themselves—against the tyranny of man or demons—and you fight for her.[39] You rescue those being led away to death—and the end of sin is nothing less than death—just like Jesus does.[40]
I believe this gorgeous, heavy, heart-rending law, this “law of the slaughtered One,”[41] draws us into holy depths few find in their lives. No words, certainly not these written here, capture it. None do it justice. Who can sit with the Son of Man in God-ordained Gethsemanes, in Spirit-led “go agains,” and stare at the cup before him?[42] Who can drink it? Who can count the cost of bloody intercession, and empty this holy grail to its bottoms-up dredges? Who can account for the One in Whom the Godhead dwelt in bodily form[43] sweating blood into the soil He spoke into being, wondering if any possibility could be considered to pass the cup?[44] Who can arrive, like the angel in the garden, like Jonathan in the wilderness, and strengthen a soul in God?[45] Who will say “yes” when courage calls in demand? Who will stay in the trench when the bullets begin to find your body, when the mortars make fireworks of the trees above you?
RELATED READING // Read “The Burden-Bearing Body” here
When the city Abraham searched for all his days[46] is brought forth from heaven and God dwells among men forever, her gates—the only way to access the redeemed Jerusalem—“will never be shut.”[47] How beautiful! Truly, “Jacob will lie down in safety.”[48] For the first time in human history, let alone Jerusalem’s, she will be unthreatened by security concerns. And yet, just as there is only one Way to the Father, we’ll yet be bound to His decrees over her gates.[49] Not all will be allowed to enter. Some will be barred at the door, and the first on the list are the cowards.[50] The cowardly will not see the fruition of Abraham’s dream. Covenants cost both courage and blood. It is the cowardly heart whose love “grows cold.”[52]
Let us be those who unbind Lazarus,[51] who are known for our violent commitment[53] to rescue and restore.[54] Let us be found faithful, let us walk worthy, that we can be entrusted with holy missions.[55] Let us be willing to stay awake in the zero dark thirty of Gethsemane, to hold the cup decreed for us on our hands, and lift our eyes from the grail. Let us set our eyes on eternity, on the joy set before us—on the day our brave Beloved comes on the clouds in power and glory[56] to rescue the Bride He ransomed with His blood,[57] and begin eternity with His suitable help-meet who did not shrink back from the dark and dangerous valleys and alleyways she had to enter to find Him, become like Him.[58]
Let us be a bride made “ready.”[59]
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She lives in the Golan Heights and cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] 1 Peter 2:25
[2] Matthew 26:6-25
[3] John 13:1
[4] 1 Corinthians 1:8; Philippians 1:6
[5] Matthew 7:6
[6] John 2:25
[7] Psalm 42:7; Romans 8:26
[8] Hebrews 12:24
[9] Galatians 5:1a
[10] Psalm 16:6
[11] Luke 15:13
[12] Galatians 5:1b
[13] Proverbs 26:11
[14] “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory
[15] Luke 15:4-7
[16] Psalm 131:1-3
[17] Genesis 1:3; Psalm 12:6; Isaiah 40:6-8
[18] 1 John 4:8, 10
[19] 1 John 4:18
[20] Mark 5:9-13; Luke 8:30-33
[21] John 11:38-44
[22] Galatians 5:16-26
[23] Song of Solomon 5:2-8; see also “When Following Jesus Gives You a Black Eye,” by Jordan Scott (FAI PUBLISHING, 2017).
[24] Romans 8:28
[25] Genesis 50:20
[26] Luke 21:19; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
[27] Galatians 6:2
[28] John 15:12-13
[29] 1 Corinthians 12:31
[30] Proverbs 29:18
[31] Hebrews 12:2
[32] Matthew 27:1-50; Mark 15:1-37; Luke 23:1-46; John 19:1-30
[33] Hosea 1:2; Matthew 10:4; Mark 3:19; Luke 6:16
[34] Luke 15:22-24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Romans 12:2; Philippians 3:10, 21
[35] Genesis 1:26-27; Romans 8:29
[36] Hosea 3:1
[37] Matthew 18:21-22
[38] James 5:19-20
[39] Proverbs 24:11-12; Matthew 8:16; Mark 16:9; Luke 10:1-20; Acts 19:12
[40] Proverbs 24:11-12; Ephesians 2:1-10; Romans 6:23
[41] Galatians 6:2
[42] Hosea 3:1; Matthew 26:36-42; Luke 22:39-44
[43] Colossians 1:19
[44] Matthew 26:36-42; Luke 22:39-44
[45] Luke 22:43
[46] Hebrews 11:10
[47] Revelation 21:25
[48] Zephaniah 3:13
[49] John 14:6; Revelation 21:27
[50] Revelation 21:8
[51] John 11:44
[52]
[53] Matthew 11:12
[54] Luke 19:10; Revelation 21:5
[55] Nehemiah 9:8; Daniel 6:4; Luke 16:1-12; 1 Corinthians 4:2; Ephesians 4:1; Colossians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; Revelation 3:4
[56] Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 24:30; 26:64; Mark 13:26; 14:62
[57] 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10
[58] Genesis 2:18; Matthew 22:2; Romans 5:14b; Ephesians 5:31-32
[59] Revelation 19:7