Boom or Sacrifice?

Yesterday, in my reading, I came across a stark contrast.

A headline read, “Consequences of boom year borrowing hit Churches.”

Later, the author of a Lenten meditation wrote about Christ’s trial. “Christian,” he wrote, “come and look closely: it is when Jesus is humiliated, most seeming weak, bound and despised and alone and defeated that He finally answers the question, ‘Are you the Christ (Messiah)? ‘… yes I am’ He says. … This, then, is the Christ that Jesus would have us know and accept and (O Christian!) reflect: One who came to die. One who, in the assessment of this age, failed --- an embarrassment, a folly, a stumbling block. An offense! One crucified.”

“Boom year borrowing …” and “Churches,” in the same headline?

Jesus, hands bound, finally acknowledging He's the "hope of all people,"?

Was the church seduced by a secular fantasy?

Were we – alleged Christ-followers – deluded into riding a bubble of promised prosperity?

Did we buy the myth: more titillating/more gratifying … greater spectacle/bigger crowds … more power/greater influence?

Have we been tested and found bankrupt?

Are our bigger barns filled with perishable possessions?

The contrast is scandalous.

Compare.

Christ’s finest hour – that cosmic moment when He, with rare candor about His own identity, declares His supremacy – is His and humanity’s darkest hour.

This is His way! It is our way – we who presume to call ourselves by His Name. There’s a cross on the way; a death. “In dying we are born to eternal life.” There’s someone new – no longer our misguided selves – leading the way. He’s the CRUCIFIED LORD!

Do we still want to be called by His Name?

We can opt for another “boom.” Or we can choose a life of sacrificial love spent for the sake of a broken humanity; a fallen nobility for whom our Life Master gave up everything.

Here’s what He has to say about that choice. “I take your practice of sacrificial love seriously. Actually I take it personally. Whenever you go out of your way or pay a price for the benefit of someone, no matter how insignificant they may seem to you or others, I consider the deed to have been done for my sake. And I assure you it will not go unnoticed. In fact, there is a reward awaiting sacrificially loving people who consistently do this kind of thing out of pure love for another. The reward? It’s an inheritance. The bequest was established before ever a word of creation was spoken. Sacrificially loving people will be given a ‘Kingdom.’ They will be given the “Kingdom of the Heavens around us,” the “Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.”

This is really what our Life Master – Jesus, who is called ‘Christ,’ the model man – has offered those who follow His example and go to the Cross for the sake of another. They will become people of great influence. They will “reign, with Him, forever.” Give as He gives. You’ll lose nothing and gain everything. Matthew tells us as much in chapter 25 verses 31 -40.

Which do you choose? Another “boom,”? Or the path of sacrificial love?