“I believe Jesus is the Christ, son of the Living God, my Lord and Savior.”

I was 12 years old when I made my public confession of my decision to follow Jesus. I nervously fingered my junior choir robe as I repeated the words Rev. Marvin Cheney said. I promised to follow Jesus. But I had no idea what “following Jesus” actually meant. I knew that I loved Jesus. How I would actually go about following him was something I hadn’t considered. 

In the 35 years since that confession, I’m afraid my lack of forethought has been fairly evident in the many times I’ve lived out my purported faith poorly…or not at all. But one thing I have learned in the intervening years is that following Jesus always begins the same way it did then - with Love - love for and love from the Son of the Living God.

Each year, Lent invites us to reconfess a willingness to follow Jesus, as we are invited into a 40 day journey of trial and temptation. Each year, we begin as Jesus is driven into the wilderness. Out of Love, we go with him - to examine ourselves and to be examined, to test and be tested, to seek and to be sought.  As we travel towards Jerusalem, we see the challenges to Jesus’ mission mount while the stakes grow higher.  We ask ourselves about the risks of following this wild prophet who challenges religious and civil authority and asks us to evaluate the depth of our commitment to him. Will we continue to follow? Even unto the cross?  

Love does not demand that we will say yes. We are free to turn aside, to flee the garden, and to abandon the vigil at Golgotha. 

But we do so love this Jesus…

…and where Love goes, we would follow. Into discomfort, into doubt, into isolation, into disruption, into grief, into suffering…we would follow.

Lead us, O Lord. Where you go, we would follow.    ~April

(Click here for the downloadable version of the We Would Follow Lenten devotional from which this reflection is excerpted. Paper copies are also available in the back of the church for you, or to share with others.)