Last Wednesday, at 2:23 pm, I considered coffee—round two. It was mid-afternoon and I’d just put my contacts in. An apple and peanut butter offered a slight pick me up. But I still crawled through the day.
Before caving to an earlier nap, I considered the days accomplishments, which included: swallowing all meds, taking a shower, returning an email, listening to three Ted talks (mostly during the shower), and reading two short life-changing chapters in the book, All In, by Mark Patterson.
Then, exhausted, I curled up on my bed and slept for two hours.
Ugh!
When I woke, I reread the first chapter:
"Jesus didn’t die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous.
Faithfulness is not holding the fort. It’s storming the gates of hell.
The will of God is not an insurance plan. It’s a daring plan.
The complete surrender of your life to the cause of Christ isn’t radical. It’s normal.
It’s time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.
It’s time to go all in and all out for the All in All.
Pack your coffin."
Earlier in the chapter, Mr. Batterson explained, “A century ago, a band of brave souls became known as one-way missionaries. They purchased single tickets to the mission field without the return half… and packed their few earthly belongings into coffins. As they sailed out of port… they knew they’d never return home.”
Never. Return. Home.
(Batterson, Mark. "Pack Your Coffin." All In.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013. 13-14. Print.)
In contrast, I napped on a sleep number bed and have no plans to leave my safe world. In fact, it would be very hard to leave my safe world in the confines of this body.
But the phrase resonates, “Pack your coffin.” Especially during Holy Week. No doubt, Jesus arrived with a packed coffin. At some point, he understood the plan. Was he ten? Twelve? Eighteen? Or Thirty-three when the reality hit home?
What was that moment like? The moment he first understood he was headed for the cross? That he wasn’t here for enjoyment but rather to give his life away?
When my teenage voice students arrived last week, I thrust the book at Paul.
“Read the first chapter,” I insisted. When he was done, I asked, “What do you think?”
“It’s pretty cool. ‘Pack your coffin’.”
“Yes, but what does it mean for us here?”
He didn’t even pause, “We have to fight words and opinions where we live.”
Surprised, I pressed him for more and he let loose, “Our issues cause us to lash out. We don’t deal with our [personal] stuff, so we live in a war of words. That’s why unity in the church is so important.”
Bound by the notion I can’t risk enough, I hadn’t considered the ways my safe world really isn’t safe. But Paul had made it clear.
Just yesterday, on Palm Sunday, we commemorated the day Jesus climbed onto a donkey and rode straight to his death. It took a few days. But he knew the plan. He knew where the triumphal entry led.
The momentary cheering would soon turn to mocking by the fickle crowd. One moment a hero. Five days later a criminal. No doubt, Jesus rode into town; his coffin packed.
However, shortly before He was arrested in the garden, he prayed these words, “My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17: 20 – 23 NIV).
Only a short time later, he was arrested and beaten and nailed to a cross.
So as I put all of these thoughts together, I desire to live abandoned to God's divine purpose which has much to do with unity. What it looks like and how to achieve it, I don't know.
But as we journey to the cross and then beyond to the resurrection, I plan to ask, seek, and knock...and maybe even pack my coffin.
All photos courtesy of pixabay.com
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