To live for…to die for

TROWEL & SWORD

Rev. J. Joubert

How many of us like to ponder the idea of dying? Yet, it is something we are confronted with every now and again.

When I was about 16 I had to memorise a poem by Wilfred Owen that made a big impression on me. This poem was written in 1917-1918. It is a poem about the grotesque lie that it is privilege to die for your country. The title is: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. It is a Latin quote from Horace. And it states that it is sweet and fitting to die for your country. The poem goes like this:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags,
we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares
we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep.
Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod.
All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines
that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!
– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out
and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and
thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,
choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams
you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell
with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Now, serving in the military myself, having seen the horrors of war, having heard the same old lie, I would like to ask you this: Is this a cause you are willing to die for? Many might say yes, I am still not sure that this is the best cause to die for. And on this, I believe, I am not standing alone.

Edith Cavell was a British nurse who got captured and killed during World War I. She helped hundreds of Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. She was arrested and court-martialled by the Germans for this offence. Just before the bandage was placed over her eyes for the firing squad, she said: “I am glad to die for my country. But I realize that patriotism is not enough.” Then she gave clear and definite testimony to her personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and assurance of salvation. She died under the firing squad in 1915.

Is there a cause that you are willing to die for? The conflict between the Israeli’s and the Palestinian Arabs has highlighted the extent to which people will go to defend a cause. The conflict between Jews and Arabs is probably the oldest ongoing conflict on earth. Since the days of Abraham, more than 4000 years ago, the conflict has raged. Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac was the ancestor of the Jewish people. Modern day Arabs trace their ancestry back to Ishmael. The Old Testament, hints at this ongoing conflict: Genesis 16:12 says of Ishmael: “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

In the recent conflict, the terror for the Israeli’s is the suicide bombers. Young Palestinian men load themselves with explosives and position themselves at strategic locations where there will be a large number of Israeli’s such as nightclubs, bus stations, airports. Suddenly the explosives go off, completely destroying the suicide bomber and killing many people around him.

The Palestinian community honours these suicide bombers as heroes. Indeed parents and teachers instil the desire to do this for the cause of the Palestinians and Islam. The father of a suicide bomber said: “I am happy and proud of what my son did and, frankly, am a bit jealous ... My son has fulfilled the Prophet’s [Mohammed’s] wishes. He has become a hero! Tell me, what more could a father ask? My prayer is that [my son’s] brothers, friends, and fellow Palestinians will sacrifice their lives, too. There is no better way to show Allah [God] you love him.”

Classroom signs at Arab schools proclaim: “Israel has nuclear bombs; we have human bombs.” In return for martyrdom, the youth are told that their families will receive financial compensation, their pictures will be posted in schools and mosques, and they will earn a special place in heaven where they will enjoy unlimited pleasure with celestial virgins.

Is there a cause that you are willing to live and to die for? Listen to me: The truth is that Heaven and being a Christian is all about dying and it’s all about living. But friend, it is vastly different from the model that Al Qaeda or Hamas portrays for Muslims.

Christians are motivated to die to self and to live for God’s sake. Before we were saved, God proved His love by sending Christ to die for us. God’s love contrasts with human love in both nature and degree, because God demonstrates (keeps on showing) His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died in our place. Though a few people might possibly be willing to die to save the lives of good people, though that is rare, Jesus Christ went well beyond that. He died in the place of the powerless (verse 6), the ungodly (verse 6; 4:5), sinners (5:8), and even His enemies! (verse 10)

It is easy to fragment the Christian life and become preoccupied with individual pieces instead of the total picture. One group may emphasize “holiness” and urge its members to get victory over sin. Another may stress witnessing, or “separation from the world.” But each of these emphases is really a by-product of something else: a believer’s acceptance that God has sent His Son to live and to die for us! The fact that God came to earth to live and to die for men is not something which humanity deserved; it is an act of pure love on the part of God.

We are being reminded that if we want to follow Jesus life itself is about denying self and taking up a cross. This is of course not an easy road. The life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, and a founding member of the Confessing Church, reveals this quite dramatically. He was involved in plots planned by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was arrested in March 1943, imprisoned, and eventually hanged just before the end of the World War II in Europe. Bonhoeffer’s most widely read book, The Cost of Discipleship, begins, “Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” That was a sharp warning to his own church, which was engaged in bitter conflict with the official nazified state church, The book was first published in 1937 as Nachfolge (Discipleship). It soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government. At its centre stands an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount: what Jesus demanded of his followers—and how the life of discipleship is to be continued in all ages of the post- resurrection church.

I think we have made Christianity meaningless in many ways. We have convinced people that salvation is about saying a few magic words and then life gets all better. That is not what Jesus says to his disciples. He doesn’t say “gents confess me and jump in line at the ice cream parlour of life”. We must be aware of counterfeit Christianity. Counterfeit Christianity makes no demands on our time, allegiance, or behaviour. Counterfeit Christianity proclaims the Jesus that you put on like a shirt in the morning, it makes me feel good, look good, fit in but then you take it off and throw it in the hamper when you’re done with it. Friends, it is an empty and hollow religion that demands nothing, requires nothing, and ultimately means nothing.

This is a far cry from what I hear Jesus saying to His followers. If any would come after me, let him take up his cross, daily and follow me. Jesus tells us that living is about dying. It is about a cross in our lives. Friends, there is only one use for a cross and it is not jewellery. The Cross is an implement of torturous death. The truth is we are all about heaven and glory and blessing, and hope, but we don’t want to hear about a cross. Life, Real Life is about a cross.

In his book Pursuit of God this is what Aiden Wilson Tozer said about the cross in our lives. “The cross is rough and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience into the presence of the living God.”

Would you like to have something to live for, to die for, that will give you purpose and meaning in life? Consider living for Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God! In Matthew 16:25-26 (NIV) Jesus said: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”

God does not want us to die for Him, as much as to live for Him daily. The Lord may ask some of us to die for Him, but He asks all of us to live for Him. God does not call all of us to be martyrs, but He does call us to be “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1–2). I am suggesting that in some respects, it may be harder to live for Christ than to die for Him; but if we are living for Him, we will be prepared to die for Him if that is what God calls us to do.

I would like to give you two examples of people who died to self in order to live:

At the age of 16 Charles Thomas Studd was an expert cricket player and at 19 was made captain of Eton, England. Soon he became a world-famous sports personality. He played for England in the famous 1882 match won by Australia which was the origins of the Ashes. But the Lord had different plans for him, for while attending Cambridge University he heard Moody preach and was converted. He soon dedicated his life and his inherited wealth to Christ and spent hours seeking to convert his teammates. In 1884 after his brother George was taken seriously ill Charles was confronted by the question, “What is all the fame and flattery worth ... when a man comes to face eternity?” Sensing God’s leading to full-time service, he offered himself to Hudson Taylor for missionary work in China. While in China, he inherited a sum of money equivalent today to half a million dollars. In 24 hours he gave the entire inheritance away, investing it in the things of the Lord. Later he was forced to go back to England, for his health was failing and his wife was an invalid. But God called him again—this time to the heart of Africa. He was informed that if he went, he would not live long. His only answer was that he had been looking for a chance to die for Jesus. “Faithful unto death,” he accepted God’s call and laboured until the Saviour took him Home. In 1931, still labouring for the Lord at Ibambi at the age of seventy, Charles Studd died from untreated gallstones.

Jim Elliot was an evangelical Christian missionary to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Huaorani people through efforts known as Operation Auca. In 1948 Jim wrote in his journal, “I seek not a long life, but a full one, like You, Lord Jesus.” Two years later, he wrote: “I must not think it strange if God takes in youth those whom I would have kept on earth till they were older. God is peopling Eternity, and I must not restrict Him to old men and women.” His journal entry for October 28, 1949, contains his now famous quotation, expressing his belief that missions work was more important than his life. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. Like the first Christian martyr, Stephen, Jim Elliot and his four friends were called on January 8, 1956, to “Eternity” as they were slain by the people they were seeking to reach. What has happened to the Aucas since then is proof that the blood of the martyrs is indeed the seed of the church. Many Aucas are now Christians.

So what is my point? Why all this talk about death and life? It is to say to you this: Christianity is about life and death, but not in the same way the Al Qaeda or Hamas suicide bombers see it. It is also not sweet and fitting to die for your country. But I do believe that it is right and fitting to live and to die for Jesus. So my slogan is not: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. No my slogan is: Vitae novitae vivemus est decorum et Dulce cum Christo. It is right and fitting to live the new life in Christ…

Why? Because Jesus came into the world to live for men, and, in the end, to die for men, yes, He was resurrected from the dead for the sake of man. He came to give for men his life and his death. This is fundamentally the message of the Gospel God loved the world to the extent that he gave his Son to die for it. How much does God love us? Enough to send His Son to live and to die for us (John 3:16).

In the light of these thoughts, we should be led to think of our responsibilities. We are now responsible to live for God’s glory. Redeemed, we should seek to serve Him faithfully. We should recognize our responsibility to be thankful, and from our lips there should come a daily song of praise. Christian life is to be a daily experience of growing in the love of God. It involves a Christian’s coming to know his Heavenly Father in a much deeper way as he grows in love.

Have you experienced a cross? If not, it is time to die to self so that you can really live. Have you experienced a cross? If so, dying should hold no fear for you. Our days are numbered but we are guaranteed a way from life unto life.

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