Worshipping Jesus Is Easier Than Following Him

We're fresh off celebrating the resurrection of Jesus this past weekend. I shared a message on the question the angels ask at the tomb: "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5). A lot of people are looking in the wrong places for God to move these days. As I reflect on the state of the Christian experience for most people, it becomes obvious we've focused on worshipping Jesus in a way that gets us off the hook from looking like Jesus.

To be fair, this tendency usually starts somewhere genuine. Most people who pour themselves into worshipping Jesus aren't doing it as a dodge. They're doing it because they actually love him. But sincerity is also what makes this impulse so easy to hijack.

I believe this overemphasis on worship is what enables much of the bizarre theology we see around us. This was on full display at the recent White House Easter lunch. That was where President Trump's spiritual advisor made a strong claim to his similarity with Jesus:

Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our lord and savior showed us. But it didn’t end there for him, and it didn’t end there for you. God always had a plan. On the third day, he rose, he defeated evil, he conquered death, hell and the grave. Because he rose we all know we can rise, and, sir, because of his resurrection you rose up. Because he was victorious, you were victorious. And I believe that the lord said to tell you this: Because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hand to.

It seems the thinking is that if you put enough worship language about Jesus in it, no one will notice the rest of the nonsense around it. But the President himself leans into this rhetoric. As he personally said at the Easter event:

On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem as crowds welcomed him with praise honoring him as king. They call me king now. Can you believe it?

It's easier to spot the absurdity when it's shown at this level, but that might obscure the fact that most Christians buy into this thinking in smaller ways. If we worship loudly enough, then the rest of what we do doesn't matter as much.

There's something about the resurrected Jesus, in particular, that I've been thinking about lately. After being tortured, killed, and then raised back to life, Jesus says something a bit confusing to the people who are most excited to see Him.

"Don't cling to me." (John 20:17)

I don't know about you, but if I saw the resurrected Jesus standing in front of me, I might get a little clingy. And yet even in this moment, Jesus was inviting them forward, toward something beyond even His physical resurrected body. We can imagine them wanting to worship and focus obsessively on Him, and yet His next words are to give them something to go and do. "Go find my brothers and tell them..."

Then, as now, it seems our tendency is to focus on Jesus (at least with our language) rather than figuring out what we should do with what Jesus showed us. With that in mind, the louder we talk about Jesus, the better. It's how churches decide to celebrate Easter with a nine-day, 10,000-drone Easter light show. This became the largest drone light show ever produced in the United States. Oh, and it's a different show each night. In case you're wondering, the cost has been estimated at $3 to $7 million, although no official budget has been disclosed.

And yet through all of this, Jesus continues to invite us forward. Toward something we do and toward someone we become. That's why Jesus said, "I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you" (John 13:15). Notice He didn't tell us to spend more and more time figuring out how to worship Him. Obviously, this is much harder. We'd rather sing about what a great job Jesus did than attempt to look like Jesus ourselves.

It turns out that clinging to Jesus gives us a way to hide our motives, our desires, and our overall failure to follow the actual way of Jesus in our lives. And on top of all of that, few can challenge this posture as it looks and sounds spiritual. We jokingly apologize for being so obsessed with Jesus. If you grew up like me, this was literally a badge of honor I once celebrated as I listened to D.C. Talk remind me that it was okay to be a Jesus Freak. The song's entire chorus is about not caring what people think. (We all cared enormously.)

I think one of the reasons Jesus instructed His followers not to cling to Him was that He knew we could get lost in our shows of worship to Him. It's a theme we see elsewhere in the Scriptures:

Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,
an endless river of righteous living. (Amos 5:23-24)

So the question for us today is: How are we clinging to Jesus instead of living like Jesus?

It's time for us to get back to embodying the way of Jesus. No drones required.

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