I remember as a little kid being curious about how my loved ones would get to heaven, and I spent a lot of time in my child’s imagination thinking through the logistics.
Do we need to pack a suitcase? Where would we get the ladder? How could we carry a heavy suitcase so high?
In reflection, I see that some mysteries of faith we cannot estimate with reason, yet I do understand that even as a young person, somehow, I was very concerned with the salvation of others.
By contrast, my local environment, the church and otherwise, made it very clear to me in my pre-elementary years that society did not welcome loving relationships between people of the same gender nor did the hand of a Loving God sanctify such a marriage. As a young girl, who already had a sense of her queer identity and who knew she wanted to marry a woman, it seemed that not only was my salvation uncertain, but also my God’s love was unavailable to me.
Much of my adult life has been about reconciling those aspects of my childhood, understanding that both blessed me and broke me, and realizing that God loved me through it all. He was and is using the blessed pieces and broken parts to call me into myself.
Once I got to know Jesus Christ, my Savior and Redeemer, I felt freedom to stand before God and let His loving gaze wash away the guilt and shame. There, bare and barren, I could see my hurt as the call to help others learn the ladder to heaven is welcome to all who believe in the God who is Love.
Jesus invites us to follow Him. Nothing more, nothing less. He asks us to step out in faith, go in trust that everything we need for the journey with Jesus will either be provided along the way or removed from us totally.
And that’s the hard part.
Yes, Jesus, I believe in You, and I want to come after You, but what must I lose in the process?
For some, the cost might be financial certainty, social status, or creature comforts, but for many the cost is what we have been led to believe.
Yes, Jesus, I want to follow You, but I do not believe I am worthy or welcome to be with You.
Come and see, the Lord says.
“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”1
By following Jesus, we are challenged to let go fully and empowered to think critically about what in the world convinced us to exchange truth for a lie about who we are and what determines our worth. Choosing Jesus means accepting the love of our Creator and surrendering the standards set by a culture of created things.
As God’s nature is divine, His power eternal, Jesus promises us freedom from the fixed patterns of the world that condemn and judge, that limit godliness to a measure of performance.
The liberation Jesus offers does not mean leisure. The yoke implies a distinct discipline that first empties us, then fills us with the spirit of holiness. It releases us from the burden of appearance, clothes us with compassion, and frees us into simplicity that is truly pleasing to God.
A life of faithfulness follows not a reductive interpretation of written code but the Living Word; Jesus embodied non-conformity and lost His life calling out the hypocrisy of extravagance and exclusivity masquerading as pure doctrine.2
“Do not do what they do … Everything they do is done for people to see,” Jesus said of religious leaders and experts in the law.
What Jesus knew and what the life of Christ attests is that the mark of faithfulness is written by the Holy Spirit on a person’s heart; for what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal.3 And just as the One who makes the outside makes the inside also, Jesus achieved His fullness and fulfillment when He was stripped of everything on the Cross.
“How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” Jesus asks.4
Following Jesus means we put our trust in the One who died believing that a faithful person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.
Jesus died for what we couldn’t see but what His life proves.
God is Love.
