Follow Jesus ... a Lenten Path

            “Jesus went out and he saw a tax collector named Levi, and he said to him, “Follow me” (Luke 5:27).  Christians make it their life’s work to follow Jesus.  Christian pastors preach that following Jesus is the business of the church.  The church exists to help people be devoted followers of Jesus Christ.  The calling of Levi in Luke 5 is one of many passages that lead Christians to insist growing as disciples of Jesus is the purpose of life.

            Why?  Why did Jesus call specific individuals to follow him?  Why do Bible readers interpret the call to discipleship experienced by James, John, Peter, and the rest as a prelude to the calling of all humanity to discipleship?  Christians believe all people are invited by God to follow Jesus.  But why is following Jesus so important?

            “When the days drew near for him to be taken up,” says Luke 9:51, “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  “Taken up” means the crucifixion.  Where it says Jesus “set face,” it means he was determined from that point onward to journey to Jerusalem.  Nothing would stop him.  Everything in Luke’s gospel from 9:51 to chapter 23 is built upon Jesus’ journey to the cross.  He was determined to go to the place where he knew a brutal death by crucifixion awaited him.  Why?

                Why is Jesus so intent that all people become his followers?  Why was he set on going to his death?     The key to answering both questions is Luke 19:41-44:

⁴¹ As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "If you even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  Indeed, the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up ramparts around you, and hem you in on every side.  They will crush you to the ground, you and your children with you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God."  

Jesus wept over the city because they were lost in sin.  Of that city, he said,

³⁷ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37)!

Jerusalem reject God’s prophets, thus rejecting God’s word.  When we sin, we reject God’s way for us to live and choose our own way.  Jesus desperately wants to rescue us from our sin, but at least in the case of Jerusalem, the week before the crucifixion, the people rejected God’s offer of salvation.  That’s why the cross was necessary.  Sin brings death and eternal separation from God.  Jesus took on himself both our death and our alienation from God when he died on the cross in our place.  That’s why the cross is so important; it’s why he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

            The only way Jesus’ death on the cross become affective in our lives is when we put our trust in him and give our lives to him, acknowledging him as our Lord.  Why is crucial that we follow Jesus?  God wants a relationship with us in which we are His sons and daughters and he is our Father and Lord.  That relationship comes when we follow Jesus.  When we confess our sins, repent, and acknowledge Jesus as Lord, we are baptized in the Holy Spirit and adopted as sons and daughters of God. 

We are called to follow because God loves us.  But we cannot accomplish discipleship by our own spiritual will power.  We sin, we hurt God, we hurt others, and we hurt ourselves.  So Jesus came to cover our sins and effect transformation in us.  Jesus died on the cross because God loves us. 

These are the basic elements of the God-human story.  During Lent, we rehearse this story, retell it, walk in it, and discover it anew.  I have been a Christian for 38 years and am diving to greater depths as I go through the story this year, in some ways as this were my first time in Lent.  I hope you are learning what it means to follow Jesus and as you do, I hope you see the cross.  As you see the cross, I pray you will see your life, covered by Christ. 

Because God loves us, we follow and learn continuously learn new, richer ways to love Him and each other.