There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two. The way of life is that of faith in Christ Jesus, which proceeds in love for God and man; and the way of death is that of unbelief and self-idolatry, whereby you strive to serve yourself above all others, only to find that you are consumed by the desires and demands of your own fallen flesh.
So you stand at the crossroads, and these two roads diverge before you, the blessing and the curse, the way of life and the way of death. You cannot travel both, but it seems as though the choice ought to be easy enough, since faith and life and sin and death are as different as heaven and hell.
The trouble is that, in the blindness of your sinful heart and mind, you cannot perceive or interpret the difference clearly. The way of life looks like death to you. The life-giving Word of the Lord sounds onerous and burdensome, as though it were asking too much of you, whereas the gifts and promises of God in Christ appear foolish and pointless. Life itself looks like the opposite to you.
By contrast, the way of death appears to you as though it were pious and righteous, as though it were a sure and certain path to life and happiness, to safety, security, and peace, and as though it were actually the way of God. In your sinfulness, in your native unbelief, life looks like death, and death looks like life. Faith seems foolish, a bad investment. Sin seems wise and profitable.
The way of death, in short, is the way of legalistic self-righteousness, which is already the heart of the problem. It comprises all the many and various ways by which you strive to get life for yourself, whether by attempting to bargain and barter with God, seeking to buy Him off with your works and sacrifices, or by ignoring Him altogether on the false assumption that you know better.
This way of death is common to all the sons and daughters of Adam & Eve, apart from conversion. Until the Holy Spirit shines the Light of Christ into your heart through the Gospel, you dwell in thick darkness, though you cannot even tell that you’re in the dark. You strive and strain with all your might to set things right, to get life for yourself, to gain control, to get whatever you want. But what you get is death; and many others suffer, too, as you pursue that path of self-destruction
The way of life is the very opposite. It is followed by no trust or confidence in yourself at all. It is pursued solely by faith in the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, by His Word and Spirit.
You cannot find or follow that way of life by any wisdom, reason, or strength of your own. For you cannot recognize or know the Lord Jesus apart from His Word and Holy Spirit, far less can you believe in Him or follow Him by any intelligence or effort of your fallen flesh. But the Lord in His mercy does not leave you to your own devices or allow you to proceed unhindered on the way of death. He rather confronts you with the preaching of His Cross and Resurrection.
By the preaching of His Word He knocks you off your high horse, He shatters your hard heart, He pierces your beclouded mind, and He breathes His life-giving Spirit into your body and soul, so that you become a living being. He shines the Light of the Gospel into the midst of your darkness, so that you begin to see Him as He is. It is as though something like scales falls from your eyes.
He does it by the preaching of His Cross and Resurrection, which is the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His Name. That same preaching is what is necessary for the salvation of all the nations. So that is what St. Paul is called to do, like the other Apostles before him; and that is what pastors to this day are called to do in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
By that preaching of repentance you are crucified and put to death — to yourself, to your sins, and to the wicked world all around you. You are crucified, put to death, and buried with Christ Jesus, in order to be raised to newness of life by His forgiveness of your sins and the gift of His Spirit.
Whoever tries to save his own life will lose it, but whoever loses his life in this world for the sake of the Lord Jesus and His Gospel will have Life everlasting with Him in body and soul. That is the paradox between these two ways, the way of life and the way of death.
The preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of your sins marks your body and soul, heart, mind, and spirit, with the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the sign of His Cross, as also in your Holy Baptism. So it is for you as it was for St. Paul. As the Lord sent Pastor Ananias to lay his hands on Saul of Tarsus, to bestow the Spirit upon him, to open his eyes, and to baptize him in the Name of the Lord Jesus, so has the same Lord sent His pastors to baptize and catechize you, to anoint you with His Spirit, and to sign you with His Cross upon your forehead and your heart.
As the Cross has been signed upon your heart, mind, and body, as it is preached into your ears and confessed with your mouth, so does the Cross mark all that you think, all that you say, and all that you do. It crucifies and puts to death whatever is self-righteous in your body and soul, whatever is sinful, whatever is unfaithful and unloving. But it also resurrects and sanctifies your body and soul, and it strengthens the New Man in you — which is your life in Christ and His Life in you.
Because the Cross does all of this, because it marks you, and because it crucifies you, and because it raises you up with the Lord Jesus Christ, it also means that you are hated and persecuted for His Name’s sake, and that you bear and suffer His Cross in your body and life on this earth.
Consider what God said concerning St. Paul: “I will show him how much he must suffer for My Name’s sake.” Not that God would punish him for being so wicked up until that point, but that his suffering for the Name of Jesus Christ would manifest the Gospel in his body and life. Thus were the power and wisdom of God manifest in St. Paul; and so are they manifest in you, as well.
What you suffer is not pointless, it is profound and fruitful, both as a discipline by which you are strengthened in your repentance and your faith in Christ Jesus, and as a bodily confession and proclamation of the Cross and Resurrection of the same Lord Jesus Christ.
So was St. Paul called to bear the Cross and to suffer for the Name and sake of the Lord Jesus. And though you do not have the same office and vocation as St. Paul the Apostle, you do have the same Lord, you are called by the same Jesus, and you are given the same life in His crucified and risen Body. You bear His Name and His Cross in your body and life, wherever He stations you.
As you are thus called to live and die with Christ Jesus on the way of life — and so to rise and live with Him forever in both body and soul — He does not leave you to fend for yourself on your own. Like St. Paul, having received the true sight of faith through the preaching of the Holy Gospel, and having received the gift and cleansing of the Holy Spirit in the waters of your Holy Baptism, so are you also now fed and strengthened in body and soul by the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus. You are invigorated as a member of His Body, the Church, to live in faith and love by His grace.
And it is not only that you bear and suffer His Cross as a disciple, but Christ Jesus Himself is with you to share your sufferings and to bear you up in the midst of sin and death, each step of the way. Indeed, so closely does He identify Himself with His Christians, that whatever you suffer in His Name, He suffers in you and with you and thereby sanctifies your sufferings with His own and saves you from sin and death in His Resurrection and Ascension to the Right Hand of the Father.
Whatever it is that is put to death in you by the Cross of Christ Jesus, much more do you receive in the Fruits of His Cross, in His crucified and risen Body given for you, and in His holy, precious Blood poured out for you. Baptized in His Name, anointed by His Spirit, fed and strengthened by His Food and Drink, you live and walk with Him on the way of life. Which is to say that, even though you die to yourself, to your sins, and to the world, yet shall you live unto God in Christ.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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