LATE ONE EVENING, AS I WAS ON MY way home, I visited the police. My chaplaincy to them has evolved to visiting often and inevitably quite briefly. As I walked in two officers looked at me quite intently. “What happened to you?!” I was momentarily stumped until I saw that they were looking slightly above me – at my forehead – and yes, I remembered that I had there the mark of an ashen cross.
“You OK? Been in an altercation?” I thought but didn’t say, “You should see the other guy!” That’s how we want to portray ourselves: knowledgeable, in control, and if in a fight – even if battered – the winner. Instead I replied that it was ‘Ash Wednesday’ and Lent was beginning in the Christian Church, when we spend time observing Jesus go to the cross, and considering why He did.
And so I had a brief moment to say something about how our sin and death are beaten by Jesus on the cross to have the last word. It was only later that the thought came to me that the world should ‘see the other guy’! In fact, that’s what Christian discipleship and Christian ministry is all about: seeing and following this ‘other guy’. What this phrase implies is that while I might be cut or bruised in the altercation, the other guy is far worse off. How true that is for our salvation! Human nature is an enemy of God and it fights him even though it is dead and blind (Ephesians 2:1; 5:8).
Jesus didn’t ask our permission to rescue us and give us life with him. Rather, Jesus entered ‘enemy territory’ – but territory still so loved by God – and battled our sin and pride and the forces of darkness in our world of sin and injustice. While Jesus’ victory on the cross is hidden from our sight (“his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance” [Isaiah 52:14]), it is declared to our ears: “Jesus said, ‘It is finished’ and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30).
Death didn’t kill Jesus. Jesus was in control and gave up his spirit on that cross, “disarming the rulers and authorities and putting them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15) so that we be
forgiven. When the words “dust to dust, ashes to ashes” are said over us, they will not be describing our demise, or declare us ‘down for the count’, defeated, but rather our movement from perishable to imperishable, from dishonour to glory, from weakness to power, from a natural body to a spiritual body in Christ (1 Corinthians 15: 42–44).
You should see the other guy – because that other guy is Jesus! Consider who Jesus is and what He did on earth and ultimately on the cross. May the whole world come to see this other guy through worship, song, and art, and ultimately lifted high on the cross. Why is he there? FOR YOU!
