Not So Easy

Jesus is in the mode of the prophets, and the prophets are never ones to soft-pedal, compromise, or be vague. Any analysis of Jesus’ true message (not the selective and filtered modern version) shows that He makes expansive, uncompromising demands on any who would be His disciples.

You must repent and believe His Gospel. You must clearly accept that He is the only Light, the only Truth, and the only Son of the Father. You are to love no one and nothing more than you love Him. This includes your very family as well as the things most essential to your physical survival, such as career and livelihood. If you do not do this, then you are not worthy of Him.

You must take up our cross daily. You must be willing to suffer even unto death for Him and what He teaches. It is not enough to love your neighbor; you must love your enemy. It is not enough to avoid adultery; you must have a comprehensive sexual purity that excludes all forms of sexual activity outside of biblical marriage, even impure thoughts. You must forgive others who have hurt you or else the Father will not forgive you.

Time and time again, Jesus warns of Hell and the necessity to be sober and serious about judgment. Jesus is not some angry preacher. Jesus, who loves you to the point of shedding His blood for you, warns that many will be unable and unwilling to enter Heaven on its terms; few will take the narrow road of the cross. Not all who say, “Lord! Lord!” will enter heaven, but only those who do the will of the Father. Many will hear from Him, “I know you not. I know not from whence you come. Depart from me.”

There is no compromise, no third way. You cannot serve two masters, God and mammon. A friend of the world is an enemy to God. “No one who sets his hand to the plow and keeps looking back is fit for the reign of God. To your excuses and pleas for time in “getting your act together,” He says, “Let the dead bury their dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom!”

There is little we can call gentle or soft in the mainstream of Jesus’ preaching. Though He invites you as a disciple to know Him as the True Shepherd, the True Lover of Your Soul, who gives you the true Bread for which you hunger and lasting water to quench your thirst, He wants you carrying your cross, not reclining on your couch. Jesus heals many, but He insists on faith being operative prior to performing miracles.

Jesus’ plan for you involves a deep paradox; He challenges your every expectation. He does not apologize for offending your notions. He declares that if anyone is ashamed of Him and His teachings, then He will be ashamed of that person on the Day of Judgment. There is to be no compromise with the wisdom of the world.

All of this, though recorded clearly and consistently in the biblical record, is conveniently forgotten by the world. Most modern people prefer nuance and/or euphemisms; they prefer a suggestive and inviting tone. But Jesus, like the prophets of the day, combines a searing judgment on worldly ways with an uncompromising insistence that you choose sides.

Thanks be to God, dear Christian, that He chose you and appointed you, even baptized you and feeds you with His very body and blood, that you should bear much fruit. He has gone before you with His cross and baptized you into it, so that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light indeed.

-Adapted from Msgr. Charles Pope, with addition of last paragraph.

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