Part 14 (2/2)

About the same time that Tim's hope was being bolstered by G.o.d, Gerry Couchman had a spiritual experience of his own. The two acquaintances met for breakfast one morning, and during the meal Tim mentioned his medical situation. In pa.s.sing he added that for various reasons, neither his sister nor his brother was a viable kidney donor. It was a pa.s.sing comment, not a plea for help. But something about the situation resonated with Gerry at a deep level. He thought about how much he had enjoyed playing with his kids when they were young and wondered how Tim's two young sons were being impacted by their dad's failing health. He thought of Tim's role as pastor-of the lives G.o.d was touching through this faithful man-and pondered how his disease must be adversely impacting his energy and effectiveness in this role.

After the men finished their breakfast, Gerry climbed into his car and drove away. Half a mile from the restaurant, the Holy Spirit brought a verse of Scripture to mind: ”Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,” Romans 5:7 says, ”though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.”

”Tim is a good man, Gerry,” he sensed G.o.d saying. ”I am not asking for you to die for him, but I am asking for you to help him live.”

Gerry arrived home, discussed the matter with Janine and then picked up the phone and called Tim. ”G.o.d wants me to donate one of my kidneys to you,” he explained. ”And I have complete peace that this is what I need to do.”

Tim was speechless. Was his recently bolstered hope pointing to this wildly unexpected turn of events? While Gerry's seemingly impulsive desire to help Tim was touching, what were the odds that the blood of this man he barely knew would be a match?

Gerry indeed followed through. He went to the medical center for blood testing, and he and Tim awaited the results. With a mixture of awe and disbelief, they learned that Gerry's blood-type compatibility was a perfect match. Still, Tim found it incredibly difficult to believe that a near-stranger would take such a bold move on his behalf. ”How do you thank someone for offering up part of his own body for the simple goal of saving yours?” he asked himself. He believed Gerry had received a prompting from G.o.d, but was Gerry sure he wanted to obey?

AS SOON AS BOTH MEN GOT OVER THE SHOCK THAT A TRANSplant operation really could await them, Gerry was subjected to a battery of blood tests, kidney-function tests, cholesterol tests and blood-pressure a.s.sessments. Everything was a match.

Later, I would ask Gerry what it was like to go through each step of the process, knowing that with every gate cleared, he was one step closer to giving an organ to a guy he barely knew.

”What's the point of taking your organs with you as you're laid in the box,” he replied, ”when they could save someone's life today?”

He had a point.

During Gerry's hospital stay, each time a technician entered his room to draw blood or conduct further a.n.a.lysis, the soon-to-be donor saw an opportunity to share the message of Christ.

”Is the recipient a family member of yours?” various hospital staff would ask.

”No,” Gerry would reply.

”A close friend, then?”

”Not really.”

”Then why on earth are you doing this?” they would ask, with looks of incredulity on their faces.

”Because I was prompted by G.o.d,” came Gerry's straightforward answer.

I can only imagine the conversations that followed.

On December 11, 2007-almost eight months to the day, after that restaurant breakfast-Gerry Couchman found himself lying on a gurney in a South African hospital, being prepped for kidney-transplant surgery. Four hours later, Pastor Tim Hawkridge underwent the same routine-and four hours after that, both men were lying in a recovery room, each with one healthy kidney.

Tim's new organ began functioning right away, cleansing the impurities from his blood, and making his days of dialysis a distant but unforgettable memory. Three months later, Tim was strong enough to teach at his church once more. He had always loved his role as pastor, but after his long-awaited return to the platform, he found new resonance in his work, and that resonance continues today. He attributes this newfound mental and spiritual clarity to the fact that this entire series of miraculous steps was divinely orchestrated by G.o.d. ”G.o.d blesses us to be a blessing,” he says. ”This story isn't about two men as much as it's about our wonder-working G.o.d.”

Idon't know what an account like this does to you, but when I think about Gerry's decision to risk his life and health to obey a whisper from G.o.d, something in me can't help but cheer. I wish every Christ-follower in the world could know the same gut-level satisfaction that only shows up when you release your grip on comfortable living and submit to a dangerous prompting from G.o.d like Gerry did.

Gerry's sacrificial obedience to G.o.d's whisper flies in the face of human nature. You and I (and every other member of the human race) are what I call ”clutchers.” Left to our own devices, we sc.r.a.pe and claw and fret our way up the ladder, and once our efforts net even a modest amount of status, power or comfort, we hold on to it like pit bulls seizing raw meat.

In the face of this potent, pervasive human instinct, G.o.d tells his followers, ”Don't be clutchers. Instead, become relinquishers.” That's how I read Philippians 2. In the opening verses of that chapter, the apostle Paul says this: ”Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” In case we don't fully comprehend what the exhortation means, Paul then offers an ill.u.s.tration by way of the life and legacy of Jesus Christ.

”Have the same att.i.tude of mind that Christ Jesus had,” Paul says, and then he unloads a litany of seven voluntarily relinquishments that Jesus himself made.

Seventeen years ago, while soaking in the book of Philippians, this list of Jesus' relinquishments-or demotions-hit me like a Mack truck. So powerful was the section in chapter two of that great epistle that a friend and I eventually wrote a book about it.1 I will never forget how verses six through eight speak about Jesus: Who, being in very nature G.o.d, Did not consider equality with G.o.d something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!

According to this pa.s.sage, Jesus Christ starts out at the very top. He was ”in very nature G.o.d,” which means that he was not merely vice president of the Trinity Corporation or G.o.d's junior partner; he was (and is) a full-fledged member of the G.o.dhead, equal with the Almighty Father in every way, shape, and form. He was just as present and partic.i.p.atory in the creation of the universe as G.o.d, and all of the divine prerogatives were not only G.o.d's, but Jesus' as well.

Jesus' point of origin is significant, in light of the first demotion I'll cite. Although he started at the top and enjoyed perfect equality with G.o.d, Christ did not regard that position as ”something to be grasped.”2 Jesus was not a ”clutcher.”

I don't know about you, but if I ever found myself in a position of equality with G.o.d, I'd be hanging on for dear life. Even the most mature believers among us wrestle with letting go of adoration and fame. Not so with Jesus. He as much as says, ”I will take a demotion here. I will let go. I will surrender whatever is necessary in order to cooperate with G.o.d's mission for me.”

And down the ladder he stepped.

Demotion number two is described this way: ”He made himself nothing.”3 Demotion number one dealt with loosening the grip; the next demotion deals with the consequences of loosening that grip. In another translation, this verse says he ”emptied himself.” This doesn't mean Jesus divested himself of his deity; rather, he laid aside those divine characteristics that would hinder him from becoming a man. n.o.body stripped Christ of his power; he voluntarily let it go. It was the second in a string of relinquishments. And down the ladder he stepped.

Demotions three, four and five happen in rapid succession. The text says that Jesus agreed to take on the appearance of a man, he then was made in the likeness of a man, and finally he became a bondservant to man. It's a sequence I find utterly breathtaking. The transcendent Creator of the universe came down to the world he had created-not as an emperor requiring subjects to bow before him-but, instead, as an ordinary guy, looking for those he humbly might serve.

When I try to imagine the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent G.o.d submitting himself to the confines of human flesh, my brain short-circuits. Just imagine what it must have been like for the G.o.d of the universe to acquiesce to the limitations of infancy, adolescence and young adulthood. Try to picture a seven-year-old Jesus saying, ”Okay, Mom. Okay, Dad. Whatever you say.” Creator submitting to creation-it's an astounding thing to take in.

I picture Jesus Christ walking the busy dirt roads of a city in Palestine. ”Move it or lose it, Jew-boy!” pa.s.sers-by might have said, oblivious to who it was they were elbowing out of their way.

THE FIRST TIME I VISITED A POVERTY-STRICKEN COUNTRY AND saw starving kids standing in a food line, an image caught my eye that has stayed with me ever since. One of the smaller kids in line kept inching his way toward the front, but each time he would make it near the food, the bigger kids would shove him out of the way. He would obediently toddle to the back of the line and begin inching his way forward again. I'll never forget him: he wore a tattered blue s.h.i.+rt that stretched tightly over his bloated belly, and below the waist he was stark naked. His dark hair was turning orange, a sure sign of malnutrition, and his skin was chalky white from the caked-on dirt he bore.

On that particular trip, I was staying at a comfortable hotel less than twenty miles away. The following day I would board a jet airplane and fly home to Barrington, Illinois, where a suburban home, clean clothes and as much food as I could possibly eat awaited me. I remember thinking, ”What would it take for me to voluntarily live in that kid's skin for a year?”

My honest answer sobered me. There wasn't enough money in the world to make me do something as self-sacrificing as that. But Jesus Christ willingly and willfully wrapped himself in human skin and walked this planet-not for one year, but for thirty-three years. He was scorned, misunderstood, rebuked and routinely wronged. And yet he chose to do it anyway. He relinquished the adoration of the angels in order to accomplish his Father's purpose in his life.

And further down the ladder he stepped.

Demotion number six comes to us in Philippians 2:8, which says, ”He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death...”

Jesus Christ-the One who initiated all of life and sustains it to this day-stood toe-to-toe with death. ”Okay, you win,” he conceded on our behalf. He voluntarily laid down his life so that his mission could be fulfilled. The fact that he laid down his life is striking enough-but how he laid it down is incomprehensible to me. Did he simply chug some hemlock or chew cyanide? Did he arrange for himself a painless slumber that would lead gently to the blackness of death? Far from it. Which brings us to Jesus' seventh and final demotion.

Whenever I read the last phrase of Philippians 2:8, I do so with awe-filled reverence: Jesus submitted himself to the point of death-”even death on a cross.”4 Crucifixion-death on a cross-was a mode of execution that didn't just kill people; it tortured them to death, allowing every macabre sensation of dying to be experienced in fullest measure. Crucifixion was an excruciating, humiliating way to die.

While Jesus hung on the cross, men and women pa.s.sed by, spitting and throwing stones, hurling profane accusations his way. Just a week earlier, many of these same people had carpeted his path with cloaks and palm branches, their lips shouting praises, not profanities. This juxtaposition must have made the agony of those hours on the cross all the more complete. When I read these accounts of Jesus' death, something in me wants to cry out, ”Is there no depth that Jesus will not go-is there no level to which he will not descend-in order to be faithful to his mission on my behalf?”

The answer is no, there isn't a depth to which Jesus did not stoop. There isn't a level of pain Jesus didn't agree to bear. There isn't a burden our compa.s.sionate Savior refused to carry. There is no sacrifice our Savior did not make. This realization challenges me to up the ante on my own obedience in following the relatively simple whispers he asks me to obey. Perhaps it has the same effect on you.

Bestselling books these days often tell rags-to-riches tales, but I contend the greatest story history has ever known reflects the exact opposite chain of events. It's a riches-to-rags story-burial rags, that is. It's a highest-height-to-deepest-depth account of One who voluntarily demoted himself. I wrote years ago, in the book Descending into Greatness, ”The Highest came to serve the lowest. The Creator and Sustainer of all things came to pour himself out. The One who possessed everything became nothing. From the world's perspective, the cross became the symbol of foolishness. Yet in G.o.d's eyes, Christ became the greatest of the great.”5 And he did it, not by clutching, but by relinquis.h.i.+ng all he had.

Given the downsizing and downscaling that would be required, why would you or I-or anyone in a right mind-sign up for a life like that? We are trained from a very young age to seek achievement, upward mobility, that sense of ”rising above.” We are groomed to become someone, not to empty ourselves for others. But in order to follow Jesus Christ with any degree of tenacity, we inevitably will be prompted to take demotions. We will be asked to relinquish what is ”rightfully” ours. We will inconvenience ourselves to the point of sacrifice, even when others call us fools. And we will do it all for two simple reasons: first, we understand that the kingdom of G.o.d never advances without sacrifice; and second, because every serious-minded Christian I know wants to receive a heartfelt ”well done!” in heaven someday.

Let's look at each, in turn.

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