October 2006

I've been re-reading Blue Like Jazz for my book club. Don Miller says writers make one dollar. And when you're writing without a contract it, which he was at the time and I am now, you feel like what you're writing is worthless, and it is because no one has bought it yet. 

Needless to say, I know just what he felt like.

Still, since I've been writing so much, I'll still include another excerpt from my upcoming--hopefully-- book. 

Lisa

Naked on a cross

The sacrifice of Jesus is such an amazing picture of just how far God will go to humiliate himself. It’s so risky to run up against embarrassment, most of us avoid it at great costs. For our redemption, God spared not sacrifice or modesty. When we speak of Jesus “being our shame” or bearing our shame”, I think we gloss over the example God was modeling to us– the nature of what our character should be.

The kind of shame we are talking about regarding Jesus’sacrifice is completely beyond the scope of our understanding. His sacrifice shows the depths of nature. First, keep in mind Jesus was there at creation. He too, set the worlds in place and made lemurs and platypuses. He thought making a being in his image (Adam) would be a wonderful way to envelope this creation in the perfect love the Trinity communes eternally.  He helped lonely Adam by creating a perfect match for him.

Later, when things go wrong Jesus willing empties himself of his all-powerful glory, subjugated to an existence in a fallen world. Then, he was abandoned by the friends and followers in whom he invested three years of his life. He was mocked, beaten, tortured and publicly executed with no just cause because a screaming mob said he should be. He hangs nailed up to a tree, for crying out loud, naked in front of jeering crowds. All this is done to pay for the wrongs of people who hate him. He dies for perverts, liars, gossips, haters, bigots, cheats and sinners. You and me. He takes on every horrendous act ever thought or committed on his shoulders and quite literally dies of a broken heart. He became shameful, humiliating sin for us.

Would you feel humiliated being killed naked in public? uhm. yeh. It’s not a natural thing we’d imagine doing on any given day, let alone doing it for the benefit of those who are horrible, and those who despise us. It’s supernatural. It’s grace: The undeserved thing. Jesus in a real sense says: “I love you in theory and in practice–watch, I’ll show you.” One little girl put things into focus for me when she called Jesus, “God with skin on.” This is our good God. He is worthy of our love. This is God’s true nature! He is the God who calls us to love others by this same nature through the supernatural help of his own Spirit. The defining characteristic of Jesus was humility. Is that your defining characteristic?

Lisa DeLay

writer, speaker & founder of www.wit4life.com

ethoughts@verizon.net

570-385-2145