Models for Youth Ministry by Steve Griffiths

Author:Steve Griffiths
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SPCK

The cost of a crucified Christology

Sorrow, sympathy, salvation and surrender are the hallmarks of a ministry built upon a crucified Christology. Devoting ourselves to that model will inevitably cost us dearly. But personal sacrifice is an unavoidable consequence of modelling our ministry upon the Saviour who was prepared to die so that we may be forgiven. Death, however, was not the only cost to Jesus in modelling a crucified ministry to us. As we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Bonhoeffer noted that, ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.’ The death that is required of us need not be physical; there is a death to self, a death to personal ambition, a death to individualism required. In the same way, Jesus undertook a crucified ministry even before the physical act of crucifixion occurred. In winning salvation for us, Jesus made himself completely and utterly vulnerable in a way that cost him dearly. The salvation-ministry of Jesus involved the absolutely unconditional offer of forgiveness. This is a concept we often pay lip service to without really thinking through the personal implications for Jesus.

It is often said that the art of good leadership is never to fight battles that you cannot win. Good leaders, it is said, do not go into a conflict situation unless they are absolutely sure of what the outcome will be. Jesus, however, turned that ideal on its head. Time after time, culminating in his death, Jesus offered forgiveness and acceptance to people without setting prior conditions and without knowing what the outcome would be. Time after time, Jesus accepted the sinner absolutely unconditionally without once looking for a guarantee that the sinner would follow him thereafter. The reality, then and now, is that Jesus always takes the initiative with sinners without first waiting for them to repent. Jesus welcomes the sinner into his presence in the hope that he or she will then repent. A crucified Christology portrays Jesus as a vulnerable Saviour who offers salvation without any preconditions or guarantee that it will be accepted.

Taking that approach to ministry, Jesus makes himself utterly vulnerable because he opens himself to the possibility of rejection. Taking that approach, Jesus is a Saviour so intent on sealing the forgiveness of our sins that he chooses to identify with each one of us at the lowest point of our humanity. Jesus does not relate to us on the level of the best we have to offer. His salvation-ministry is about Jesus touching the very dregs of our humanity. That is where salvation operates in practice; Christ meeting individuals at the lowest and most forsaken point of their being. Jesus forsook the glory of heaven so that he can meet with us as we truly are. That desire took an incredible act of love, compassion and vulnerability on his part.

Jesus offers salvation without any guarantee of a positive result. Ironically, our God is not like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15.

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