Battling the Drip

Photo courtesy spazticwon

I have been making the conscious effort to observe Lent this year in order to focus my heart and mind on the cross of Christ, mostly through meditating throughout the day on a scripture, sermon, concept, hymn, or whatever would spur my thoughts upward. I've noticed different themes have popped up the past few weeks which have taught me, or perhaps allowed me to be teachable, about the nature of Christ and our calling as Christians. The past couple days the theme has been "dying to self", and the thought came to me that, for the most part, it is not dying in a big, heroic way with trumpet calls, battle cries and the clashing of ten thousand shields. That would be easier. No, I think it is the slow death, one drop of blood at a time, taking place in the meekness of silence, the loosening of pride and forfeiting of self-entitlement (even when we believe the entitlement is justified, rational and--heck--even a low estimate of what we really deserve).

And then I thought about Jesus fasting forty days in the wilderness and being tempted by the devil. Perhaps Christ faced those small, seemingly inconsequential battles of will like a slow, constant drip, only for them to come to a head at the end of His fast as the devil's three temptations. However they came about,  Jesus had to "die to self", so to speak,  in each of them, and as He was God incarnate, it must have been an unfathomably large death. And it would seem to follow that though this wasn't the death that paid for our sins, it was His dying to self, His constant decision to do His Father's will over His own, that made His death on the cross potent for our salvation.

Thanks be to God for an eternity to wrap our minds around these things.