“… When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
That’s an encouraging way to start, right? Now you might be thinking “This sounds depressing. Should I keep reading?”
If we stop there we miss the entire point…and the best part. We will miss the part that our hearts look for, long for.
Bonhoeffer was an early 20th century German pastor and theologian. He wrote those words during the rise of the Third Reich when the Nazis were seeking to gain more power in the country by pressuring influential Christians into joining the Nazi movement. There was great pressure to join the “winning” side (whether willingly or through coercion) and many of those influential Christians supported Hitler seeking political power and security. Many justified themselves by thinking that they could do more good by being in Berlin’s good favor than resisting the evil empire.
Bonhoeffer found Jesus more compelling than Hitler and resisted (leading others to resist with him)…all the way to his death in the Flossenburg concentration camp. What it meant to trust and follow Jesus in Germany in the 30’s and 40’s meant that a faith-filled person might have to stand firm while others are willingly giving in. For Bonhoeffer (and many, many others) to trust Jesus by following him meant losing their lives. It meant that they would “come and die.”
Bonhoeffer’s courage did not come from his own will. His words did not come from his own creativity. What he had came from Jesus’ invitation to relationship in passages like Luke 9:23: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
If that were the whole story, though, it wouldn’t be enough. Not nearly enough.
Hear more of Jesus’ heart in the next verse: “For whoever would save his life will lose it [pause isn’t that what we are all trying to stay away from…loss? Keep reading…] but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” I bolded the last part because it is so easy to read over, but it is crucial!
The goal isn’t to revel in a martyr’s death, constantly being defeated, but proud that we sacrificed. No, Jesus’ invitation is to find the life we long for in following him, even if that means loss in the process.
Let me say that another way: Jesus’ invitation is to the fullest possible life with him even if that means that we may lose lesser loves.
Jesus calls us to come and die, yes. He calls us to his cross. He is clear about that. He is also clear that the cross is never the end. Behind every crucifixion is a resurrection that makes the loss more than worth it.
Bonhoeffer’s quote above is often quoted, but I don’t ever remember hearing someone quote the words right before “come and die”: “…the cross is not a terrible end to an otherwise god fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
The cross is not the goal. Communion with Jesus is. That is what Jesus said. That is what Jesus invites us to. No emotionally healthy person wants to suffer, but every sane person who understands the beautiful promise of communion with Jesus would follow him wherever he goes, at whatever cost.
This might be too long already for someone to read while trying to scour the internet for inspirational or interesting thoughts, but let me make one statement more before I finish this.
When Jesus calls us to lose our lives in order to find them that also includes our work. I might even say that it is primarily through our work that Jesus invites us to come and die. It starts in our attitude towards work and towards those we work among. What if Jesus calls us to come and die (and therefore find real life!) in the everyday, mundane, often mindless action of our work? It is possible that the reason why we have the work that we have is to picture for the people we work around how this promise of the “found life” causes us to treat people radically different than we are expected to treat them. The promise of a fuller, richer life compels us to lay down our lives for another rather than to step on them to try to find a better life.
Jesus’ invitation is to come and die, but dying is not the point. The point is to enter into the life we have always longed for, through the kind of death Jesus died. So many have looked at their own cross and turned away because the loss seemed too great. Jesus invites us to look through the cross to a life with him that makes the real pain and loss of our own cross seem like it didn’t seem like loss in comparison.
The cross is not where it ends. Keep reading, and swell with hope at the best part of Jesus’ invitation to come and die with him.