Crazy for Christ
Jesus said, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.”
Mark 6:4
Once, when Jesus talking to His followers about the opposition they would encounter, He made a remark that can only be interpreted as the product of bitter experience. He said, “A man’s foes shall be those of his own household.” Jesus’ own family had come to the conclusion He must have gone out of His mind. He had left the family business and, when they learned that He had chosen twelve disciples and started a ministry as an itinerant preacher, Mark tells us that “they went out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is beside himself.’” (Mark 3:21) What appalled the family and friends of Jesus were the risks He was taking, risks which, as they thought, no man in his right mind would take. After all, He had thrown away the security of a job, the safety of a community that knew and loved Him, and had shown Himself indifferent to the verdict of society. Yet, Jesus always put obedience to God’s will ahead of His own safety and security.
When the medieval writer, John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, was in prison for his religious beliefs, he was—quite frankly—terrified of hanging. Then, one day he became ashamed of being afraid and finally decided, as he thought of himself climbing up the steps to the gallows, “I am for going on and venturing my eternal state with Christ whether I have comfort here or no; if God doth not come in, thought I, I will leap off the gallows even blindfolded into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell; Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do: if not, I will venture for thy name.”
That is precisely what Jesus was willing to do. It was as if Jesus had said, “Father, I will venture for Thy name.” That was the essence of the life of Jesus, and that—not security, nor safety, nor public approval—should be the motto and foundation of the Christian life.
Has anyone ever called you ‘crazy’ because of your faith? Has anyone ever thought of you as a fool for Christ? Perhaps what is needed is for us, as individuals and us together as St. Martin’s, to “step off the deep end”—to give up our hold on safety, security and public approval, and to say with John Bunyan, “Lord Jesus, I will venture for thy name.”
