Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ's Work, Not Muhammad's

I set out to write a response to the cartoon riots and found a link in my email to what John Piper had written. His response really hit the nail on the head:

February 8, 2006 - John Piper
What we saw this past week in the Islamic demonstrations over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad was another vivid depiction of the difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means to follow each. Not all Muslims approve the violence. But a deep lesson remains: The work of Muhammad is based on being honored and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. This produces two very different reactions to mockery.

If Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was his saving work: to be insulted and die to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Already in the Psalms the path of mockery was promised: “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads” (Psalm 22:7). “He was despised and rejected by men . . . as one from whom men hide their faces . . . and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3).

When it actually happened it was worse than expected. “They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. . . . And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on him” (Matthew 27:28-30). His response to all this was patient endurance. This was the work he came to do. “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

This was not true of Muhammad. And Muslims do not believe it is true of Jesus. Most Muslims have been taught that Jesus was not crucified. One Sunni Muslim writes, “Muslims believe that Allah saved the Messiah from the ignominy of crucifixion.”1 Another adds, “We honor [Jesus] more than you [Christians] do. . . . We refuse to believe that God would permit him to suffer death on the cross.”2 An essential Muslim impulse is to avoid the “ignominy” of the cross.
That’s the most basic difference between Christ and Muhammad and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of his mission. And for a true follower of Christ enduring suffering patiently for the glory of Christ is the essence of obedience. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11). During his life on earth Jesus was called a bastard (John 8:41), a drunkard (Matthew 11:19), a blasphemer (Matthew 26:65), a devil (Matthew 10:25); and he promised his followers the same: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (Matthew 10:25).

The caricature and mockery of Christ has continued to this day. Martin Scorsese portrayed Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ as wracked with doubt and beset with sexual lust. Andres Serrano was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts to portray Jesus on a cross sunk in a bottle of urine. The Da Vinci Code portrays Jesus as a mere mortal who married and fathered children.

How should his followers respond? On the one hand, we are grieved and angered. On the other hand, we identify with Christ, and embrace his suffering, and rejoice in our afflictions, and say with the apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord, let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel. If Christ did his work by being insulted, we must do ours likewise.
When Muhammad was portrayed in twelve cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the uproar across the Muslim world was intense and sometimes violent. Flags were burned, embassies were torched, and at least one Christian church was stoned. The cartoonists went into hiding in fear for their lives, like Salman Rushdie before them. What does this mean?
It means that a religion with no insulted Savior will not endure insults to win the scoffers. It means that this religion is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again to make that possible. It means that Jesus Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man. And it means that his followers must be willing to “share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).

Footnotes
1 Badru D. Kateregga and David W. Shenk, Islam and Christianity: A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue (Nairobi: Usima Press, 1980), p. 141.
2 Quoted from The Muslim World in J. Dudley Woodberry, editor, Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1989), p. 164.

You do not have because you do not ask

This morning I was praying and specifically asking God to pour out His spirit of prayer here. That when we pray we are in tune with what the Father is doing in heaven. That when we pray angels are loosed and demons are cast out. This is the message that I was hearing:

"I will not send it until my people gather and cry out for it. They must seek my heart for this people. They must realize their own inadequacy and be desparate for a move of my power. You do not have because you do not ask."

We must not be silent. We must never give up day or night. Crying out. Admitting our own weaknesses and asking God to make himself strong. We can't have peace with business as usual. We should be FRUSTRATED, DISSATISFIED, and "tearing our clothes" because the Bridegroom is not with us and we are not walking in His power.

We need to ask Him to appoint watchmen on the walls here. The watchtowers are still being built. He's looking for people who can build them and who are willing to climb them. Who are willing to stand alone, knowing only that there are other watchmen standing on opposite gates. We need to ask Him to send forerunners here. Those who are willing not only to keep watch, but to sound the alarm.

Blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound the alarm on my holy hill. For the day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand. Who will get up and go to the mountain? Who will get up and climb the towers?

The time is short.

Night Watch

Call to Prayer

During a few of our strolls in the north, we were stopped by a desire to pray for the surrounding villages to cry out to God to have mercy in this land. Once we stopped at a stadium overlooking a red earthen field. The call to prayer was rising up around us, beckoning us to remember God’s greatness and submit ourselves wholly to Him. As the sun was setting, we could see the lights turning on in the tiny villages cut into the steep hillsides. Minarets (towers used to amplify the call) jutted out over terraced fields and the call was echoed from one village to the next. It seemed as if we were in an amphitheatre, with the melodic chanting of the muzzeins declaring the fear of God across the land.

Was anybody listening? Was anyone struck with awe of the Creator of the universe? Was anyone touched with a desire to know Him? Many people here do not go to pray, unless it’s Friday noontime prayers. But yet every home has a prayer rug or two waiting to be unfolded when the call comes. The muzzeins are crying out, “God is great!” “Show us the straight path.” May this truly be the desire of their hearts. May it not be mere words, because He’s promised: “…you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I WILL be found by you.” (Jer 29:12-14)

People here fear God. They know there’s something more than what they see. They know there’s something greater, and they have a desire to submit to that greater power. But they don’t think they can know Him. They think that He is compassionate, loving, and kind, but not that He would be willing to die for them. They think good works earn them a right to be with God, and that you can never be assured of your salvation until the day comes. It breaks my heart because I know they can have that assurance. They can live in the reality that God not only is all powerful, but that He burns with desire for His people to know Him and love Him. God is a lover looking for lovers. Oh how God must weep over these people. Oh how God must weep that they think He is such a distant God. That there is no way they can truly know him. That they don’t know that He delights in them and desires to rescue them and to sing love songs over them for all eternity.

As we sat in the stadium the call engulfed us. I was overwhelmed with a tiny glimpse of God’s heart for these people. For me, the call to prayer which I hear five times a day is a call to remember the vision that God has given me. It’s a call to press on and face the hardships of living here, the frustrations of every day life. It’s a call to “consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task that the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24).

I am confident of this, people of EVERY tongue, EVERY tribe, and EVERY nation will come to worship God in spirit and in truth through the blood of His son Jesus Christ. They will come before His throne with confidence and assurance that comes only through knowing they are sinners saved by grace alone. In this country there are 68 or more distinct language groups, most of which do not have a strong indigenous church.

I couldn’t help but think of all the tiny mosques that were crying out for people to worship God. Mosques are set up as houses of prayer. There’s little decoration and usually the main feature is just a courtyard where people can come to pray. No stage. No fancy aisles. Simplicity. These houses have been built specifically for people to gather and pray. And whether they are full of bodies or empty, they are still missing the presence of the Lord. They are still missing the power of the Holy Spirit. How amazing would it be if some day these minarets were calling people to come and worship, to come and give thanks to the Lord, our God and King whose love endures forever? How amazing would it be if these towers were crying out, “Come Lord Jesus Come! Come in power! Come swiftly!” And as the call rose up people would come from their houses, young and old, bride and bridegroom, priest and peasant, and gather together to fast and pray. If prophets could stand on the watchtowers and cry out: “Blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound my alarm on my holy hill. For the day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand. Come, prepare for the wedding of the Lamb is coming! He is coming to conquer evil and to sweep His Bride off her feet. The Spirit and the Bride say come!”

He can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Eph 3:20) and he said in His Word, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jer 32:27). Join with me in praying that God would do more than we can imagine. That these villages in the hills would seek Him, and that when His eyes roam the earth looking for those that are completely His, His gaze would stop here and see men and women seeking one thing: to know Him and to see Him in His glory.