Saturday, March 8—Day 4

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3: 10-14

To Know and Be Known
Part of the journey with Jesus Christ, both in Lent and in other seasons, is one of knowing and coming to know. Not only do we come to know Jesus more as we journey with him in life but we come to be known by him and we come to know ourselves. Thus, knowledge is of the greatest importance.

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, recounts that in spite of his impressive pedigree (a “Hebrew of Hebrews”) his one goal, as a follower of Christ, was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” This is a laudable goal, not only for Paul, but for us as well during these days of Lent. Being told on Ash Wednesday that we are but dust and to dust we shall return points us toward our mortality and prepares us for our Lenten journey to the cross. Yet, there is a purpose in this journey and it is, at least in part, educational. As we journey we come to know Jesus and we come to know ourselves.

Within ourselves we come to know that all that we have previously held dear is “spent and worthless” (in the words of Graham Kendrick). This is not the result of rejecting God’s good creation or adopting an anti-materialistic stance to the creation — there’s no need for an extreme asceticism. Rather, we come to see that God himself is our greatest gift and our greatest treasure. As we come to highly value the Christ we desire to walk with him and to be so identified with him that we commune with him in his sufferings and seek to conform ourselves to his death. His suffering becomes our suffering. His death is our death.

Diego Velazquez chose to depict Christ idealistically in his image of the crucifixion. Christ is not the bloodied, scourged Jewish rebel but the humbled, emptied Son of God. Our identification with Christ in his sufferings and death might not be so idealistic. Our lives might be too messy; we may feel too battered and bruised to relate to such a calm, placid crucified Jesus. Nonetheless, this is the Jesus of the cross, the one who knows and loves us so much that he willingly died for us. So let us strive to know him more, to be found in him and to possess by faith what we cannot earn. Let us know Christ and be known by him.

Prayer
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

Greg Peters, Associate Professor of Torrey Honors Institute