Picture this scene… You have an audience with the King of Kings, and you find yourself entering his throne room, with high vaulted ceilings, incense, beautiful artwork, rich tapestries, incredible beauty everywhere, and then you see the throne! The throne! You have never seen anything like it! What an honor to be here!
The majesty of it all overwhelms you and you begin to bow your head and then you begin to crawl even before you see The King- and when you see him, in all his glory, you wonder how you even came to be in his presence- he is a blinding light, and beyond all human comprehension, and you know in an instant that you are in the presence of someone who is completely other! Someone whose depth and breadth and power and goodness and wisdom and love are infinite and unknowable. The whole cosmos was made by his hand and every breath taken by every creature who ever lived on earth came only because he himself breathed into them, into you, and me, and you are absolutely undone in his presence, and you can only close your eyes tight to keep from being blinded, and keep your face to the ground and your body stretched out in total submission, and you realize with terror that he sees you, right through you- he knows, he knows it all!
You are paralyzed with fear- your bones seem to melt like wax and you despair of ever doing another thing ever. You know that you are nothing and can do nothing about it. Suddenly, the light shifts, and the warm glow of it compels you to open your eyes. And you see the King, and he still seems terrible, yet, can it be? Familiar. His eyes dance with recognition… He knows you! He smiles and gently lifts your chin…. His Hand that made worlds lifts your face to his, and he laughs as he pulls you to your feet. He throws his arms around you and already he is moving, “C’mon,” he urges without hurry…”there are others!” and you find yourself with him, lifting others’ chins and rejoicing with them as they embrace the King.
The cross is the throne is the cross…. A King who comes from a blood-soaked throne to lift us up means that we can now act to serve him in freedom and joy, not fearful obligation. We don’t look at Jesus on the cross and say, “I feel terrible that my sins did that to him, so I am going to make up for it. Jesus deserves all my best effort to earn his trust back again. You’ll see, Jesus, I will do it for you, you are worth it. I’m so sorry, I’ll be good now. I’ll be sooo good! I will stand up and just do it!” No, true humility means you stay down, and in his presence. And HE will lift you up!
If you are not in his presence, he can’t lift you up! If you jump to your feet yourself, he is not lifting you up. Remember the scene in The Lord of the Rings when Denethor, Steward of Gondor, is on the throne. He plays favorites, he sends his son Faramir to certain defeat and death. “Father, Think better of me on my return…” “That depends on the manner of your return.” That’s conditional love. He is a poor steward and the opposite of the great King Jesus who exudes grace and unconditional love. We don’t trust that, so we try to earn it as if God were Denethor. We ride with misplaced honor to our deaths… either the death of separation from God because we feel unworthy so we give up because it’s too hard, or the death of Faramir, trying to earn our acceptance from our Father in heaven… Rather that we die the death of the cross, die to ourselves, die to our desires, die to our need to control our lives or deserve God’s love. Dying means we stay down until he lifts us up.
Moralism is close to grace, but it is back to back. Imagine being flat on our faces in that throne room, and then mustering our strength, jumping to our feet, on our own, so eager to please God that we turn away from his throne of grace and run to do things for him, becoming strong strangers to grace… it must break his heart to see us serving him with such selfish, fearful exactitude. Just like the younger son who came home and said, “Let me be like one of our hired servants” (Let me earn it all back!) The Father says, “No, come to the banquet of salvation, I have paid for it all!”
His grace lifts us up, and sets us free to serve. Then we see that we are all side by side, equal, lifted up together and lifting each other up.
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