Us: Die

Welcome! Today we come to the final message in our relatively short series on worship. I’m not sure what the people in the cars driving by the church all week thought about the message title – “Worship:  Die”. I want to get to the meaning of our title today, the subject of our message, in a roundabout way. I want to start by reading excerpts from one of my favorite stories, “The Golden Key” by George MacDonald. My great challenge is to not give up on the message altogether and just read you this story, to only tell the little parts that directly relate to this message. 

For those of you that haven’t heard of George MacDonald, he was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister who lived from 1824 to 1905. He is probably best known for his fantasy literature and for the fact that C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll both credit him as one of their most important influences. Indeed, if you read the Narnia books of Lewis and also read enough of MacDonald’s fantasies, you will see how Lewis was definitely inspired by MacDonald and even “borrowed” some of his imagery for his own works. Similarly, you can see MacDonald when you go down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass with Carroll.

I want to start with the opening passage of this story:

There was a boy who used to sit in the twilight and listen to his great-aunt’s stories. She told him that if he could reach the place where the end of the rainbow stands he would find there a golden key.

“And what is the key for?” the boy would ask. “What is it the key of? What will it open?”

“That nobody knows,” his aunt would reply. “He has to find that out.”

“I suppose, being gold,” the boy once said, thoughtfully, “that I could get a good deal of money for it if I sold it.”

“Better never find it than sell it,” returned his aunt.

Then the boy went to bed and dreamed about the golden key. Now all that his great-aunt told the boy about the golden key would have been nonsense, had it not been that their little house stood on the borders of Fairyland. For it is perfectly well known that out of Fairyland nobody ever can find where the rainbow stands. The creature takes such good care of its golden key, always flitting from place to place, lest anyone should find it! But in Fairyland it is quite different. Things that look real in this country look very thin indeed in Fairyland, while some of the things that here cannot stand still for moment, will not move there. So it was not in the least absurd of the old lady to tell her nephew such things about the golden key.

“Did you ever know anybody to find it?” he asked, one evening.

“Yes. Your father, I believe, found it.”

“And what did he do with it, can you tell me?”

“He never told me.”

“What was it like?”

“He never showed it to me.”

“How does a new key come there always?”

“I don’t know. There it is.”

“Perhaps it is the rainbow’s egg.”

“Perhaps it is. You will be a happy boy if you find the nest.”

“Perhaps it comes tumbling down the rainbow from the sky.”

“Perhaps it does.”

I would love to continue, but let me stop there. Why do I tell you this excerpt? Because of what I hope you feel. Apart from the humor in the portrait of the boy with a million questions and the adult who feels less than compelled to give complete answers, an experience just about every parent identifies with, and, by the way, an experience that doesn’t necessarily cease when your children grow up and go to college, I hope this experience makes you curious, excited, eager to learn more of this boy’s adventures (which surely must be about to occur) with the search for the key and what comes after. It is exciting to think of a world where magic can occur, where anything could happen. 

Dear saints, I hope you understand that this is exactly the world we live in! The adventures of the disciples with Jesus, who simply said, “Come, follow Me,” is no less, for lack of another word, magical than the worlds of fantasy that have been brought to us by MacDonald and many other authors. The God we serve loves to break His own rules when people come to Him in faith, with the hope and trust of a child. If we have lost this ability to hope and to be excited like a little child anticipating his presents the day before Christmas, we have lost an important dimension of our ability to worship.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to Him, and placed the child among them. And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. – Matt. 18:1-4

Our world tells us we need to grow up, to put our fantasies behind us, to put an end to play, but Jesus tells us we need the opposite. Just as children instinctively know that since everything that has been made has a maker, so God must exist and must have made the world, little children also have a sense of wonder; they have no problem believing that magic is “just around the corner.”

Incidentally, this passage continues with the following:

And whoever welcomes one such child in My name welcomes Me. – Matt. 18:5

I thought about this verse Friday, at our church Christmas party, when Toby asked that we sing Frosty the Snowman during our singing more worshipful songs. For those of you who weren’t there, that is exactly what we did! I am sure it meant a lot to Toby, but it also meant a lot to Christ. I bet Toby understands the “magic” of Christmas, and as he grows, I pray that he will more and more deeply understand the real magic of Jesus. 

Speaking of Christmas, thinking about childlike hope and trust and faith, I am reminded of the following account from Luke 2:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him.  It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took Him in his arms and praised God, saying: “Sovereign Lord, as You have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen Your Salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” – Luke 2:25-32

This man believed in magic, so to speak. He believed that the Holy Spirit spoke to him and directed his steps. He believed that the stories of the Messiah were not just stories, but prophecies, even after hundreds of years of Israel waiting and waiting, even after Israel losing more and more of its power and ability to self-govern under the Romans.  This man believed that this fragile, nothing-special-looking baby was the Messiah, Himself. He had that feeling of wonder, of hope, of awe, of faith. He was like a little child. And now that he had seen Him, he was perfectly at peace with dying, of his life coming to an end.

And that brings me to my second excerpt from The Golden Key. Let me give a little background. There was another child in this story, a much-neglected girl who lived in a nearby house run by wicked servants. Some fairies hated the servants, and being non-discerning about the child, wanted everyone in that house to flee far from the border of Fairyland, so they scared the girl, making her think The Three Bears were after her, but she ran in the opposite direction, right into the enchanted forest, right as the darkness of the night was coming on. A tree grabbed her, holding her tight, and wouldn’t let her go, frightening and upsetting her terribly. But then a strange creature that looked much like a fish except that it swam through the air the way a normal fish swims through the water appeared, glittering and sparkling, and set her free. Here is what happened next, from the story itself:

It led her gently along till all at once it swam in at a cottage-door. The child followed still. There was a bright fire in the middle of the floor, upon which stood a pot without a lid, full of water that boiled and bubbled furiously. The air-fish swam straight into the pot and into the boiling water, where it lay quiet. A beautiful woman rose from the opposite side of the fire and came to meet the girl. She took her up in her arms, and said, “Ah, you are come at last! I have been looking for you a long time.” [In the interest of time, I will omit the description of her and later descriptions as well.]

The girl looked at the lady, and the lady looked at the girl. “What is your name?” asked the lady.

“The servants always called me Tangle.”

“Ah, that was because your hair was so untidy. But that was their fault, the naughty women! Still it is a pretty name, and I will call you Tangle too. You must not mind me asking you questions, for you may ask me the same questions, every one of them, and any others that you like. How old are you?”

“Ten,” answered Tangle.

“You don’t look like it,” said the lady.

“How old are you, please?” returned Tangle.

“Thousands of years old,” answered the lady.

“You don’t look like it,” said Tangle.

“Don’t I? I think I do.” […]

“Ah! But,” said Tangle, “when people live long they grow old. At least I always thought so.” 

“I have no time to grow old,” said the lady. “I am too busy for that. It is very idle to grow old.” […] “But now,” she went on, “I must get you washed and dressed, and then we shall have some supper.” 

“Oh! I had supper long ago,” said Tangle.

“Yes, indeed you had,” answered the lady – “three years ago. You don’t know that it is three years since you ran away from the bears. You are thirteen and more now.” 

Tangle could only stare. She felt quite sure it was true. [The story continues with Tangle being undressed and washed by more of the fishes, and with the woman giving her new clothes. Here is how the story continues:]

The lady sat down with her again, and combed her hair, and brushed it, and then left it to dry while she got the supper. First she got bread out of one hole in the wall; then milk out of another; then several kinds of fruit out of a third; and then she went to the pot on the fire, and took out the fish now nicely cooked, and, as soon as she had pulled off its feathered skin, ready to be eaten.

“But,” exclaimed Tangle. And she stared at the fish, and could say no more.

“I know what you mean,” returned the lady. “You do not like to eat the messenger that brought you home. But it is the kindest return you can make. The creature was afraid to go until it saw me put the pot on, and heard me promise it should be boiled the moment it returned with you. Then it darted out of the door at once. You saw it go into the pot of itself the moment it entered, did you not?”

“I did,” answered Tangle, “and I thought it very strange; but then I saw you, and forgot all about the fish.”

“In Fairyland,” resumed the lady, as they sat down to the table, “the ambition of the animals is to be eaten by the people, for that is their highest end in that condition. But they are not therefore destroyed. Out of that pot comes something more than dead fish, you will see.”   [Again, I will condense, due to the time. She ate of the fish, and felt a transformation occur in her, a new level of awareness, even hearing and understanding the murmurings of the animals and trees of the forest. Continuing:]

As soon as the fish was eaten, the lady went to the fire and took the lid off the pot. A lovely little creature in human shape, with large white wings, rose out of it, and flew round and round the roof of the cottage; then dropped, fluttering, and nestled in the lap of the lady. She spoke to it some strange words, carried it to the door, and threw it out into the darkness. Tangle heard the flapping of its wings die away in the distance.

“Now have we done the fish any harm?” she said, returning.

“No,” answered Tangle. “I do not think we have. I should not mind eating one every day.”

“They must wait their time, like you and me too, my little Tangle.” And she smiled a smile which the sadness in it made more lovely.

Sadly, that is all of the story I will tell you today. But let’s talk about why I chose it. Although a fantasy, it hints of powerful truths about how we should live. The story as a whole is not an allegory, but many scenes are allegorical. Now MacDonald himself said he had specific allegorical ideas when he wrote the story, but he refused to tell them, and he said that the reader may come up with his own ideas, and they might well be better than his. But I chose the passage because in the fish I see a picture of us, of Christian believers, and in Tangle I see a person coming to Christ. Let me just say a few words about Tangle – she was trapped, and she was so consumed by her entrapment that she was unaware even of how time was slipping by. She would have been stuck there forever, but she was rescued by fish acting on behalf of their master. Tangle was welcomed in like a daughter, made clean and fed, and she was transformed, made new not only on the outside but in the inside as well.  To me this is a beautiful picture of someone coming to Christ.

What about the fish? They were servants, eager only to please and serve the lady, their master. They were willing, eager, even, to lay down their lives for her, to have the entirety of their lives, even their bodies, used to their master’s purposes. They had no thought of their own lives, their own plans, their own goals – all was to love their master through giving their lives to her to use as she saw fit. Is this not the perfect picture of how we should be, of how we should worship not only with words, but with actions, indeed, with our very lives?

I think of John the Baptist, who did not feel at all threatened by Jesus “stealing his thunder,” so to speak, when He began to preach and baptize close to where John was. After someone told John about this, and asked in effect why he wasn’t upset, John said this:

“You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.” – John 3:28-30

There is not even a hint of selfishness here – there is only joyful service. Much like the flying fish, John’s only thought is to serve His master. He doesn’t care about His reputation, or whether people come to Him anymore. He is not only content but happy to die to self, because all He cares about is serving and loving Christ.

Read the book of Acts, or read Paul’s Letters, and it becomes very clear that Paul as well lives and is willing to die for Jesus. In Romans he writes, 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. – Rom. 12:1

Again and again Jesus tells us that the Old Testament style sacrifices are a thing of the past. He doesn’t want this. He says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” in Matthew 9:13 and Matthew 12:7, but even these are a quote of the Old Testament: Hosea 6:6. In Mark 12, a person tells Jesus that to love God with all your heart, understanding, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than sacrifices, and Jesus responded by saying he was not far from the kingdom of God. But that same word for sacrifice is used here, except the sacrifice is us. A living sacrifice! These words are a contradiction in terms, as the word used for sacrifice always implies a dying. This is a living-dying. What is the purpose of this living sacrifice? Certainly not forgiveness of sin – Jesus has taken care of this with His death on the cross and His resurrection. We, being sinful, are helpless to do anything in this regard. We were trapped like Tangle. The purpose of our living-dying is worship. 

So what does this involve? It certainly includes the day-to-day choices we have about whether to sin or be selfish or to choose the better way. There is a little death in us when we do these right choices. But there is also life, because the better way is also the better Way – as we choose the right choices for Him and with Him and empowered by Him, we experience new levels of fellowship and communion with Him. We know Him a little more. We love Him a little more. In short, we worship.

This also involves sharing the gospel, loving others enough to talk about Jesus with them. I of course don’t mean to hit them over the head with the Bible, but to prayerfully commit to follow the Spirit’s leading and say something. With those who we see again and again, especially, to commit to deepen the relationship so that these spiritual conversations can take place. This can be hard, and sometimes it can have negative consequences for us. In both these ways, the hardness of it and the possible persecution that results, it too is a living dying. But as I reminded you several weeks ago, all around the world, our brothers and sisters in Christ are doing this with joy but with much greater negative consequences. Out of solidarity to them, and especially out of our love of Christ, we too should not hold back in fear but speak boldly in love.

And we should do all these things, all these ways of living dying, with joy, as worship, for it is worship. The flying fish happily jumped into the pot. So should we. I think of what Paul says in Philippians 2:

But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. – Phil. 2:17-18

On this theme of living-dying, I also think of what Jesus said:

Then He said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it. – Luke 9:23-24

Jesus said this multiple times, in multiple contexts. It is important we don’t get confused by it to think that Jesus is implying some kind of works-based salvation. For salvation there is only one cross, only one sacrifice, and Jesus has done that for us. This too is talking about a living-dying. It too is a contradiction of terms. A cross was only for one thing – for killing someone. Yet we are to take up our cross daily. We can only truly die once, so again this is talking about a living-dying. An essential piece of it is daily repentance. Each day we should examine ourselves, our actions of the day or the previous day, and as the Lord shows us areas of sin and selfishness, we should confess them to Him and ask Him to help us walk the better path. Again, this also includes selfishness that leads to not sharing our faith. 

What does it mean it will save our life? Life here, zoe, can be translated as “really living,” to experience the real joys of deep communion of God, to grow in our capacity to love, to be transformed by God and become more like Jesus. Daily dying is the one and only path to this kind of “really living.” Like the flying fish we must jump into the pot if we want to become the better creature, what MacDonald later in the story calls an aeranth, which literally is Greek for flying flower, but figuratively is flying thing of great beauty. Let us choose the path of worship and obedience that leads to us becoming aeranths. 

Our desire to serve the Lord with all we are, to even lay down our lives for Him, must be more than words. Words are relatively easy to say, but will we do what we say? I am reminded of Peter after Jesus washed His disciples’ feet:

Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times! – John 13:37-38

And as we know, this is exactly what happened only a little while later. In reference to this passage, Oswald Chambers points out that in John 15:13 and 15:15, Jesus says,

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. – John 15:13

 

and

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends… - John 15:15

Putting these together, because Jesus calls us friends, and because the greatest act of love is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, we see that we are called to lay down our lives for Jesus. Oswald Chambers writes,

If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, “Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful.” 

Peter failed the test. But as you know, there is more to this story. Interestingly, Jesus’ restoration of Peter also features flying fish (so to speak).

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. – John 21:1-3

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.  He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. – John 21:4-6

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. – John 21:7-9

Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask Him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. – John 21:10-14

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” – John 21:15-17a

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then He said to him, “Follow Me!” – John 21:17b-19

I bet you’ve never thought about this passage from the perspective of the fish before. But notice – they come willingly into the net, they stay in the net quietly (they could have easily destroyed the net if they hadn’t), and some of the fish were also cooked and eaten (how willingly I don’t know).

But far more importantly, Jesus restores Peter. Recall that Peter had three times denied Jesus during the time of Jesus’ arrest, and he had gone away weeping when the rooster crowed and he realized what he had done. That passage is not very explicit about the reasons Peter did this, but there is no doubt in my mind that Peter did it out of fear. He did not want to be arrested, flogged, or killed. He loved his life more than he loved Jesus. But here, Jesus gives Peter the opportunity to reverse each of his three previous decisions, and Peter does. We don’t know how much Peter understood this to be a reversal at this point, but then Jesus tells Peter that a time will come when Peter will die because of his love and faith in Jesus, when, like Jesus, he will, it seems, have to face the very things that made him deny Jesus earlier. And Jesus follows this intense thought with the same words He used when Peter and the others were first called: “Follow Me!”

Jesus says the same thing to each of us: “Follow Me!” We don’t know where this will lead. We don’t know what will happen to us, or what He will ask us to do. Frankly, I think this is best. I am perfectly content not knowing my future. But following Him wherever He leads is, I think, the ultimate act of worship. Even if we go through terrible trials, sickness, loss of loved ones, or direct persecution for our faith, our act of worship is to follow Him. We will not be alone! He will help us every step of the way. And let me say that there are no “secular” trials. Every trial is an opportunity to follow Him. Even through illnesses and other events through which it seems we have no choice, we do have a powerful choice – whether to praise Him and serve Him as He leads us through it, or to just grit our teeth, ignore our calling as ambassadors for Christ, and try to muscle our way through it in our own strength. Everywhere we go, everything we go through, we have an opportunity to worship Him by choosing our role as gospel bringers over our circumstances, by choosing to be encouragers of the brethren rather than those who turn away when the going gets tough. Let us lay down our lives, and in the ultimate act of worship, live for Him, even if we are led where we do not, in our flesh, want to go. For He is worthy, more than worthy! Jesus really calls us fish, remember? Let us be like the flying fish. Let us worship Christ gladly with our very lives.