An Age of Acquisition; An Epic of Letting Go

“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’” - Matthew 16:24-25

Many who read this passage jump straight to martyrdom in their minds. Questions like “Would I die for Jesus?” or “Would I go to the nations and be poor and homeless for Jesus?” swirled in the mind of every teenager and twenty-something when Platt’s Radical was published in 2010, at conferences like The Send or Passion of whatever other concerningly ecumenical event was happening that year. But what if this passage was less about martyrdom and more about waking up every day? What if this text is meant to send us on a journey, not shortcut us to the end? What if life was about more than just death?

Malcolm Guite masterfully observes of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings epic, “The book is in its own right prophetic… in an age of acquisition, we need an epic of letting go.” This is particularly insightful when you learn that Frodo’s mission wasn’t then to die (though he often thought it would be), but rather to live, and through living, destroy the powers of death and darkness. The implication is this: a faithful life rewards with more life. This is not to make little of true martyrs, who sit patiently under the altar of the Lord awaiting the grand and eternal Conclusion. It is rather to make much of a simple, patient, and persistent pursuit of all that is true and good and beautiful. That is because the call to “lose your life” is not (always) a call to die, but rather a call to live anew.

For Christ, would your foul mouth die? Not just to leave the house empty, but to occupy it with speech that is pleasant and uplifting? (Eph. 4:29). Would your lust die as you remove the tripping hazards from your life, not just to make room for new vices but to fill the space with an adoration for truly beautiful things? (Psalm 145:4-5). Would your laziness be killed, not to make room for other wasteful exercises of time, but to make room for good works to be done? (Prov. 14:23).

Like Guite says of Tolkien, we need a story of living to let go, that we might live anew. And what better story is there for that end than the story of Christ? A man who lived to die to live again. A man who promised not only an afterlife but a life after afterlife. A man who began His story of letting go by letting go, as God became man became corpse became life abundant. Somewhere in your life is a part of your life worth losing. Would you lose it to truly live?

-Brian, and the elders