Calvary’s Anthem
God has elected us and named us as His called-out ones, His church, the temple, His dwelling place. Collectively the church is the body of Christ and Jesus Christ is the head. We were not called as lone rangers in a wilderness walk. He’s called us as a “band of brothers” choking in in each other’s dust as together we follow in the “dust of the rabbi.”
None of us individually is as effective as all of us pulling together. God orchestrates all things according to the good pleasure of His will. We’re individual voices in God’s choir. As the choir director, He “tunes our hearts to sing thy praise.” We each sing different parts harmoniously fit together to the praise of the glory of His grace. We don’t sing the same part, but our voices blend together harmoniously according to His resonant frequency. God has gifted us each with a unique instrument to raise our voices in an anthem to the praise of the glory of His grace.
In Galatians 5 the liberty that we have in Christ is to serve one another in love… to bear one another’s burdens. Some people think that the blessing is in helping ourselves to God’s blessings. However, God has called us to the body of Christ so that we could bless God by blessing one another in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
Mark 2, contains the record of four men who personified Galatians 6:2, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” These men were blessed to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus for healing so they went to a house in Capernaum where Jesus was speaking to a crowd in a packed house.
The paralyzed man knew that he needed healing and that Jesus could heal him. He also knew that although he could not approach Jesus’ on his own, he had four faithful friends who were blessed to bring him to Jesus. However, it was so crowded in the room where Jesus was speaking that they couldn’t get in. It would have been easy for them to rationalize, “we’ve run into a closed door. Let’s just go home and we’ll see if we can see Jesus another day.” However, when some doors close, this is a challenge to test our faith, our resolve, and our perseverance.
In all of our lives, when doors close, sometimes God opens a window instead. We can all recall times when things did not work out as we had planned even though we had the best of intentions. Sometimes God wants us to adapt in order to accomplish his will and his purpose for our lives. When God gives us an assignment, it doesn’t matter that the door is blocked. God gives us opportunities to overcome the obstacles and the barricades in the trials of this life. When God gives us a mission, the important thing is to persevere to accomplish His mission and get the job done. It’s not about the method, rather it’s about delivering the Lord’s intended result.
The four men knew they needed to get creative in order to bring their paralyzed friend to the Lord. Military Generals often say to their troops, “don’t come to me with your problems and complaints. Instead come with four solutions to your problem.” In the military, an important part of each mission is that there is “no man left behind.” Men don’t risk their lives for the glory of their country, instead they gladly give their lives for their brothers-in-arms. The military term, “I’ve got your six,” means that I have my brother’s back and he has mine.
In this life, misery is inevitable. However, joy is a choice. The paralyzed man’s friends risked being scorned and ridiculed. They didn’t worry about shame and humiliation. They had one objective… to present their friend to Jesus so that he could be healed. Their creative solution was to take the tiles from the roof and lower their friend right in front of Jesus.
Jesus didn’t see their humility and shame. He looked down and saw the paralyzed man. He didn’t say, “son, you’re healed.” Instead he said, “your sins are forgiven.” Jesus didn’t go to the symptoms. He went right to the root of the problem. The paralyzed man’s problem was not that he couldn’t walk…. his problem was that he was a sinner in need of forgiveness. Then Jesus said, “pick up your bed and walk.” Jesus has authority over sin and the consequences of sin. The crowd and the Pharisees marveled that Jesus claimed power over sin. They thought only God could forgive sin. They didn’t believe what Jesus had said, “I always do my Father’s will.” The power of Jesus Christ was the super-natural spiritual power of God according to his Father’s revelation of His will.
Jesus knew what was in the heart of man. He understood the sin nature that all men had inherited from Adam. Jesus met the paralyzed man’s greatest need… his need to be forgiven of his sins.
Hebrews 10:25 says to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Therefore forsake not the assembly of yourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Our calling is to minister one to another and intercede in prayer according to the power of the Holy Spirit.
An excerpt from the prayer entitled “Calvary’s Anthem,” from the Puritan Prayer Book The Valley of Vision says,
“Heavenly Father, Thou hast led me singing to the cross where I fling down all my burdens and see them vanish,
where my mountains of guilt are leveled to a plain, where my sins disappear,
though they are the greatest that exist, and more in number than the grains of fine sand;
Thou hast given me a hillside spring that washes clear and white, and I go as a sinner to its waters, bathing without hindrance in its crystal streams….
The blood of the Lamb is like a great river of infinite grace with never any diminishing of its fullness as the thirsty ones without number drink of it…
In the midst of a world of pain it is a subject to praise in every place,
a song on earth, an anthem in heaven,
its love and virtue knowing no end.
I have a longing for the world above where multitudes sing the great song…
…May I always know that a clean heart full of goodness is more beautiful than the lily, that only a clean heart can sing by night and by and by day,
that such a heart is mine when I shall abide at Calvary…
That at Calvary we may die to self in order to live to Him… that we may know him and the power of his Resurrection being conformed to the power of his death on our behalf… where we continue to sing Calvary’s anthem of his cleansing wholeness…
… That we may ever live to sing the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
