AFTER GOOD FRIDAY

In the last post, I wrote about how walking in love can lead to unfavorable consequences in the face of a world that does not necessarily  operate on that basis. Many people suffer persecution, rejection and loss for choosing to follow the way of Jesus. The world powers tend to react in one form of violence or the other to a person whose lifestyle threatens their existence. But we also closed that post with 1 Peter 3: 17-18 where Peter states in verse 18

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit”

Resurrection of Christ by Noel Coypel (1700)

It is this last verse in this passage that I want to bring to your attention. Walking with Jesus entails facing what Jesus faced. Suffering like he suffered. He then follows it up with the fact that though he was killed, he was raised from the dead. We also reap a reward like he did. To be clear, we live this higher life of love in the Holy Spirit because we cannot help it. Whatever happens, we have been convinced that this is the Way. We have the nature of Love in us by the Holy Spirit. His love has been poured into our hearts and so we cannot but live like this. Regardless of our knee jerk desires to be selfish and violent, walking with God reprograms us to choose the path of love. However, we can still rest assured in the fact that our actions of love, have an impact and will be rewarded in some way.

I remember listening to Brian Zahnd preach one time and he made a profound statement; for every Good Friday, there is a resurrection Sunday (or something to that extent). What he meant was that, every time we suffer for taking the path of love, we also experience victory at the end of the day. Love always wins. We cannot tell how, or when but somehow, someway we are justified for following the way of love. We will find out maybe in this age or the next that our actions had impact and thus we have won. Consider this:

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father. (Philipians 2: 5-11)

I believe Paul tells the Philippian Church this passage for two reasons:

·         To help them focus on Jesus and his work in order be transformed into humble, self-sacrificing lovers of each other like Jesus.

·         Also, to highlight to them the direct consequence of Jesus lowering himself in love. Which is his ultimate exaltation.

Like I said earlier, we are not loving others because we want to reap rewards, that is backdoor selfishness. But our actions of love do bring rewards for us. it could just be in the sense of our personal development or the ripple effect of our actions in society. Sometimes, we are lifted higher than our persecutors. Sometimes, the loss leads us down a path to gain much more. We can’t tell. Even when it seems like love has lost, love still wins