Mere Men

I've just finished reading C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" and I must say the last several chapters really spoke to me and seem to "coincidentally" fit perfectly with the spiritual threads of conversation surrounding me the past few weeks. First, he does a great job of explaining the concept of the Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I won't get into that whole conversation yet since that is a really deep one and my church hometeam is about to start a whole study on that topic anyway. What I will say on that topic however, is that Lewis seemed to underscore for me the idea that God (and Jesus) are on a completely different dimension from me, live in a completely different world from me, and are a completely different kind of being than man. So, the concept of three different things being simultaneously one and the same thing is just not something common to man's world and really cannot probably be completely explained and understood in terms common to this world. Jesus even said once to Nicodemus that if he (Nicodemus) could not understand what Jesus was talking about when Jesus was using earthly terms, how would he understand if Jesus were to explain using heavenly terms.

So, we are different beings from God/Jesus (Duh! Right!?) God is life eternal; we are doomed to die. God is good; we are incapable of not sinning. God is perfect, we are imperfect. The Good News is that we have a choice about all this! If we remain tethered to our natural life as "mere men", we will never attain what we are searching for, we will never be able to do enough or act good enough, and eventually we will die. We are, in fact, already dead to all that matters. We can try to be good moral people and do the right thing at all times and we should try to do that. But the fact is we will always fail at some point because our natural wishes and desires for comfort, pleasure, wealth or other things of this world will override our attempts to "be good".

Our pastor, Ed Young, talked about all this last Sunday in church. Is that a coincidence that he spoke on this topic and then I happened to read the very chapters in one of Lewis's many books that just happened to say the very same thing? I think not! Lewis (and Ed Young) says that our whole purpose in life is to become like Christ. To become little Christs. Following Christ toward a spiritual life is both harder and easier than just living a natural life. Christ says we have to take up the cross just as He did and that we have to travel the narrow, more difficult road. And yet, He says that with Him His "yoke is easy and the burden light". Trying to live a moral life as a good person is very hard because Lewis says the more we follow our conscience, the more our conscience demands from us. The fact us, Jesus wants us to be perfect. No one, you say, can be perfect except Jesus. I don't even want to be perfect, you say. I just want to do the best I can and it's ok if I "slip" every now and then, we say. Jesus doesn't accept that line of reasoning. If we accept Jesus into our lives and we surrender control of our lives to Him, He WILL make us perfect. Our perfection will not be completed in our natural life on this earth, but He will be pushing and shaping us continually. Yes, we will fail along the way, we will mess up, we will sin. But if we allow Him to be, Jesus will be right there beside us to catch us when we fall, perhaps disappointed that we yet again stumbled in our attempt to walk with Him, yet at the same time proud and delighted as a father with a toddler at our feeble attempts.

Jesus wants to raise us from being "mere men" to being sons of God. To do that, we have to do like the characters in Ted Dekker's "Black", "Red" and "White" trilogy and dive deep, breathe the water into our lungs, feel the sting and the pain of dying completely to this world, trusting completely in God to breathe new life into us as completely different creatures who may still exist in this world, but are no longer interested in the goals this world sets for us. This CANNOT be done without Jesus. It can only be done through Jesus because Jesus came to our world and became a man Himself. As the only Being who has ever been fully human and fully God, He is the only one who can teach us how to rise above being merely human and to join Him in being one with God.

Lewis calls this "good infection". If we actively try to draw near to Jesus, we will be infected with His goodness and with His ability to truly live and to transcend evil, sin and death. So what does it mean to draw near to Jesus? Lewis says it means to act like Jesus acted. Since many of us would respond that we don't know how to act like Jesus, Lewis says to pretend as if you do. The Big Book of AA (which more and more I truly believe was an inspired writing by God) says it this way: "Fake it until you make it". In other words, "putting on Jesus" like a costume is sometimes the first step needed to truly learn how to be like Jesus. As you begin to "dress up" like Christ each day (figuratively), Jesus begins to turn your pretence into reality and the mask becomes a real face, the "mere man" becomes a transformed, spiritual man of God. Lewis says that, in a sense, not only are we doing the pretending, but God is also pretending with us by pretending that we are not deceitful, conceited, selfish, sinful beings, but instead pretending that we are, in fact, already perfect creatures. In so doing, He raises us up to our fullest potentials, much like a teacher who treats all of his students as if they were A+ students.

Jesus will help us become A+ students. In fact, He will accept nothing less. He doesn't just want us to pass; He doesn't just want us to be good enough; He doesn't just want our eyes or ears or mind or heart; He wants ALL of us. Not just the branch, but the whole tree. When we give Him all of ourselves, He gives us all of Himself and we are able to bear our daily crosses. But we don't just learn to bear the pain, we learn to transcend it and to live!! We start to turn from just "mere men" into extraordinary spiritual beings. Life with Christ will sometimes be hard. But because He loves us, He won't stop challenging us until we are fully matured and ready to live eternally in God's presence. I am continually astounded that God wants us to be with Him that much. Help me Lord in my daily surrender, help me to die to this life which is only a mere shadow of life with You.