Forgetting what is behind

In the lectionary reading for Morning Prayer today, we find the Apostle Paul's determination to 'forget what is behind and reach forward to what is ahead'.  That kicked off some reflections for me.

What is Paul determined to forget?  In the context of Philippians 3, I think two things.  Firstly, he is determined to forget all of those marks of his identity and achievement which might seem to be a sound basis for confidence before God.  He is an Israelite, he is - in the legal terms of the Mosaic covenant - blameless.  He has lived zealously for God.  All that is behind him now, and to be forgotten.  What he had once considered to be to his credit, he is now happy to regard as loss - because of "the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ".  At his conversion - which the church celebrates today - Paul sees clearly that all this stuff is worthless.  I take it there is more than this, though.  He is also committed to forgetting his achievements since his conversion.  He hasn't yet been made perfect or achieved his goal, but he sees Christ ahead of him, and runs toward him with all his might.  There is no time for constant retreading of the course already run.  What matters is to keep running to Christ.

There is a second thing beside his achievements that Paul must be forgetting, though.  When he speaks about his zeal for God before his conversion, he includes the fact that he persecuted the church.  Paul's pre-Christian zeal was misdirected; his understanding of God and his works and ways was faulty.  There is not only achievement in his past, but also sin and error.  That, too, he has to forget, in order to strain forward to Christ.  He is not meant to be endlessly caught up in guilt or regret.  The past has been decisively put in the past by the work of Christ.  Therefore it is to be forgotten, so that with both eyes fixed on the Christ who is ahead of him Paul can respond to the heavenly call of God.

An appropriate forgetfulness seems critical to the Christian life.  It is a part of repentance, which genuinely puts off the sins of the past and turns to face Christ.  It is a part of faith, which genuinely entrusts whatever was good in the past to the care of the Lord, seeing it as his work in and through us, and turns to face Christ.  The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord renders everything else... forgettable.

The Triumph of the Christian

A Triumph was a Roman celebration of victory, granted by the Senate, in which the victorious general entered Rome followed by the captive leaders of the vanquished, a display of captured booty, and his own victorious troops.  The New Testament contains, I think, four 'moments' which could be thought of as Triumphs, each of which is illuminating for understanding what victory as a Christian looks like.


The first Triumph is recorded in all four Gospels (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19), and of course we celebrated it yesterday on Palm Sunday.  Jesus enters Jerusalem, accompanied by his followers, who shout his acclaim.  Although it is not explicitly identified as a Triumph in the text, the echo of the Roman ceremony would surely have been picked up by the readers of the Gospels, as it has been by the church - hence the traditional description as the 'Triumphal Entry'.  Luke records that the disciples were prompted to their cries of praise by remembering "the mighty works they had seen"; I think it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that Jesus' followers saw his progress from Galilee to Jerusalem as a protracted running battle (consider the many encounters with demons), a battle which Jesus had won and which led to the victorious entry to the capital city.  At the same time, the humility of Jesus shown in his Triumph stands in sharp contrast to the self-aggrandising display of your typical Roman general.  There is something incongruous already in this Triumph.

The second moment of Triumph brings home this incongruity.  In Colossians 2:13-15, the Apostle Paul describes God's Triumph over "rulers and authorities" - spiritual powers of evil.  These powers are overcome and led in Triumphal procession precisely at the cross of Christ.  (Whether verse 15 should end with 'in him' [that is, Christ] or 'in it' [that is, the cross] the crucifixion is still in view from verse 14, and indeed the whole wider context).  The actual victory is won at the cross; the real Triumphal procession towards which the entry into Jerusalem could only point takes place on the first Good Friday.  It's a Triumph that looks like a defeat, a celebration of victory that looks like a crushing humiliation.  Jesus is dragged to Calvary carrying his cross, stripped, and lifted up to the mocking view of all, and yet it is precisely as this happens that the rulers and authorities are 'stripped' of their power to harm, exposed as the empty things they always were, and dragged in Triumphal procession behind the crucified Son of God.  The death of Christ is the Triumph of Christ.

It is because of this deep incongruity - the suffering and the victory - that the third moment of Triumph takes the shape it does.  The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:14 describes his own missionary journeys as a Triumphal procession, led by Christ.  In this use of the image we are looking at a different part of the Triumphal parade; in Colossians it was the captive spiritual powers which were in the focus, but now it is the soldiers following the victorious general who come into view.  Paul's work is a Triumph, as Christ leads his Apostle through the world, proclaiming his victory.  But because it is his victory, won at the cross, this Triumph necessarily has a curious shape; read the rest of 2 Corinthians and it is clear that for Paul his ministry was primarily suffering.  He was weak, powerless, almost despairing - and yet this was a Triumph!  This is necessarily the shape of all faithful Christian ministry, and all Christian life; conformed to the cross of Christ, and yet in that cross sharing in his Triumph.

The fourth moment of Triumph comes at the end, when the kings of the earth lead the redeemed of the nations in to the New Jerusalem, every enemy having been finally vanquished and utterly destroyed.  Only at this point will the incongruity disappear, the tension resolve itself.  They were faithful to death, they lived the cross, and now they receive their reward.

So, victory.  The Christian life is a Triumph, a following in the path of the victorious General.  It is a celebration and a display of the victory he has won.  And yet that victory is the cross, which means that Triumph can never become triumphalism.  The victory parade is a parade of suffering, weakness, and foolishness.  Until he comes.

Knowing Jesus

I am often troubled by a great many things.  The state of the world worries me.  The rapid return of Western culture to paganism dismays me.  The state of the church makes me want to pull my hair out (except I'm also troubled by my own advancing baldness).  I am troubled by my own short temper.  I am worried about my children's future.  I am vexed by a minor conflict I'm having with Oxford City Council.  I am concerned about getting a sermon ready for Sunday.  I am weary because I've not slept all that well (for various reasons).  I am concerned for the welfare of my family.  I am annoyed that the Wifi in Starbucks took a long time to connect this morning.

And so it goes on and on, big things and little things.  Things that really matter, and things that really, really don't.  Things that seem to have a spiritual aspect, and things that are just utterly material.  Some things, frankly, that I've blown out of all proportion.  Other things that I'm pretty sure are more serious than everyone else seems to think.  On and on and on.

But God has said this to me this morning, through his servant Paul: "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

Now, in context, that is the Apostle Paul saying that he has happily given up every claim to righteousness which he might have had on any grounds whatsoever, because it is better to know Christ Jesus.  But what particularly struck me this morning is just the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Surpassing worth.

When all the complexity is stripped away - and one day it will be, and today it could be - what will matter is knowing Jesus.  And it's better.  If all my anxieties and concerns could be swept away at once, the relief wouldn't compare to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus.  Better to know Jesus in the middle of the mess than to have "everything sorted" without him.  Better to have Christ my Lord than everything and anything else in the world.

Surpassing worth.

When I'm making everything complicated, or I'm going under the next wave of circumstance, will you please remind me of how joyfully simple it is?  Will you please remind me of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord?

Under the law of Christ

When Paul describes his evangelistic strategy in 1 Corinthians 9, one of the things he is keen to point out is his flexibility with regard to the Jewish Law.  He is content to keep it, if doing so will win a wider audience for the gospel; and he is content to ignore it, if that is the best way to get a hearing for the good news.  However, he is very clear that he is essentially free from the Law of Moses - "To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.  To those under the Law I became as one under the Law (though not being myself under the Law) that I might win those under the Law".  I take it that the second sentence is just an amplification and explanation of the first - to win Jews, who are or at least regard themselves as being under the Law, Paul, who is not under that Law, acts as if he were under it.

This is remarkable enough in itself, given the faultless legal obedience of which the apostle feels able to speak elsewhere.  It shows how completely Paul's outlook has changed with his conversion.

But to understand the direction in which it has changed, we need to read on.  "To those outside the Law, I became as one outside the Law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ)..."  Paul has not become lawless in his conversion.  Rather, he has moved from the domain of the Law of Moses into the domain of the Law of Christ.  The latter is, of course, different in many ways - it is not codified but based on the gospel, it is not a burden but based on the completed work of Christ - but still, it absolutely claims Paul.  In fact, his very chameleon like quality as an evangelist is an outworking of that Law of Christ - he must serve as Christ served, and he must take the gospel out to all because that is simply the logic of the good news.