The question, I think, as we are confronted with this call to give ourselves completely to Jesus Christ, is He safe? Is it safe to do that? And is it worth it? We can endure all kinds of things if there is a reason, if there is a meaning, if there is a goal to get to. But if there is no meaning, or no reason, we quickly run out of steam. Is it worth it?

Well, in this passage I just read, Jesus is toward the end of His earthly life, and He has been betrayed by Judas.  We get some of the details of this story from the Gospel of John that fill it in. The disciple who drew the sword and attacked this mob of people was Peter, we are told, and he cut off the ear of the high Priest’s slave. We are told by John, his name was Malchus. Jesus stopped the whole thing, healed the ear of Malchus and said, “That’s not what we are going to do.” In fact, he says, “Do you think I cannot appeal to my Father and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” A full Roman legion was 6,000 soldiers, so he was talking about, if my math is correct, 72,000 angels. The Bible has images of the world being destroyed, in some of the stories of the Bible, by just a handful of angels. Now Jesus is talking about the fact that he could arrange for about 72,000 to come and obliterate every enemy and wipe everything out – but he would not do that. He could have crushed his enemies, but he would not. Finally, Jesus did not lose his life, his life was not taken from him, he laid it down. He gave his life. This was a rescue mission, it happened the way God knew it would happen – and it happened for a reason and a purpose, a huge reason, a huge purpose – to give you and I life, life eternal.

There is a story about a miner in England who went into a burning mine to rescue his fellow miners and breathing the fumes in that fire-filled mine, he ravaged his lungs. Several months later, talking to another embittered miner, the fellow said to him, “I see they took your health too.” He said, “They didn’t take my health, I gave it.” There was a reason; there was a large reason that he gave, knowingly, his health and his life to save his friends. That makes all the difference. Jesus gave his life, no one took it, and he gave it for you and me. Jesus Christ is a safe person. A person who will take the complete “hit” himself rather than doing harm to you and me, as we give ourselves to him. But he maybe is not safe in the way we often think of safe. It’s a little different.

I love the image of C. S. Lewis, from The Chronicles of Narnia. If you have seen the movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, from The Chronicles of Narnia, you have seen the depiction of this image from his book. In the book, The Chronicles of Narnia, and in the movie, we are taken to where these children are holed in a state, during World War II, outside of London. They have found a wardrobe and they know if you go through the back of it, it’s magical, and it takes you to another world called Narnia, a magical world where animals talk and they have homes and they eat at tables and there is good and evil. When they arrive there, Narnia has been plunged into winter, a situation where, as one description says, “It’s always winter, but never Christmas.” The White Witch has taken over and it’s a terrible situation. She is turning the animals and people, who are talking animals, and good people, into stone and she is killing people. It’s terrible. As the children arrive, their arrival signals that things are going to change and Aslan, who is the Christ figure, is to arrive. He’s already somewhere in Narnia and he is going to make it alright. And that’s where we pick up, C. S. Lewis’ story. Lewis takes us there and the children have met with the Beaver family, who has taken them into their home. They are sitting at a table having dinner and they mention Aslan. As the children have heard that name before (he’s the Christ figure in the book), and as they hear his name, it conjures up wonderful images in their minds and a wonderful feeling…

“Oh, yes, tell us about Aslan, said several voices at once, for once again that strange feeling, like the first signs of Spring, like good news, had come over them. Who is Aslan, asks Susan. “Aslan,” said Mr. Beaver, “why don’t you know, he’s the king, he’s the Lord of the whole wood. But not often here, you understand, never in my time or my father’s time.” And then, one of the children asks, “The White Witch won’t turn him to stone too?” “Lord love you, son of Adam, what a simple thing to say,” answered Mr. Beaver, with a great laugh, “turn him into stone. If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it will be the most she can do and more than I expect of her. No, no, he’ll put all to rights, as it says in the old rhyme. You will understand when you see him.” “But shall we see him,” said Susan. “Why, daughter of Eve, that’s what I brought you here for. I’m to lead you where you shall meet him,” said Mr. Beaver. “Is he a man,” asked Lucy? “Aslan a man,” said Mr. Beaver sternly, “certainly not.” “I tell you he’s the King of the Wood and the son of the great Emperor beyond the Sea. Don’t you know who is the king of beasts? Aslan is a lion…he is the lion…the great lion.” “Oh,” said Susan, “I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “If there is anyone who can appear before Aslan, without his knees knocking, they are either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” “Safe,” said Mr. Beaver, ‘don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you, who says anything about safe. Of course he isn’t safe, but he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.’” Aslan isn’t safe in a way we often think of safe, that is, he isn’t a toothless, tame lion, he’s not domesticated, he’s dangerous, he could tear anyone apart, and conquer all, without much effort, but he’s good. And so Aslan is safe in a certain way – he’s safe because he’s good.

And so it with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, for us who would give our lives to him, is absolutely and infinitely safe because he is absolutely and infinitely good. And he calls us to that same reality; he calls us into that same state of being. We are called to become safe people. We hear the word salvation offered – it really means to be made safe, to be made secure, eternally and spiritually – in the most elemental of ways. To be made safe. Another image from C. S. Lewis gets at that kind of thing; the connection between that safeness, security and goodness. In Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce, where he talks about the divorce that will finally come at the end of time between good and evil. They will be separated and segregated from one another – complete good and complete evil. As he is dealing with that, he comes up with a story about people who are in hell in the interim time and they have the opportunity to travel from hell, on a bus ride, to the outskirts of heaven. There in heaven, they are confronted by people who are people of the Kingdom of God and of heaven, to try to convince them to come in. All they have to do is say, “Yes, I want to be in,” and they are in, transformed into the people of the Kingdom of God. And so, C. S. Lewis takes us through a number of those relationships. But it is interesting. As those people arrive on the outskirts of heaven, and they are people of hell, they step off of the bus and the grass on the ground goes right through their feet and it is painful because they are so insubstantial and heaven is so substantial! Everything goes right through and they realize that if a breeze would blow a flower petal into their leg or arm, it would break their legs or arms. They are just so insubstantial. They find out, as they talk to people, that Napoleon is off in the distance somewhere in hell, and Hitler is off in the distance. They have great armies and great empires and great ramparts built, but when it rains, the rain goes right through them.

They have no substance, they can do nothing except imagine. They can do nothing except become vapors of these things. They are so insubstantial and the people of the Kingdom of God are good, and they are solid and they are weighty and they have reality. So it is, we have this image – a wonderful image of C. S. Lewis – to say that

Jesus Christ is safe because he’s good and his goodness is the essence of the Kingdom of God, that gravity, that weight, that meaning that is of the essence. Christ calls us to be safe people – that is, people who are made safe by him, truly safe! But not in the way we generally think of it. Often we want to make ourselves safe by weakening another and we try to keep certain governments weak in the area of weaponry and the area of power and economics, because they are governments of ill will and cannot be trusted. This kind of safety is not from weakness but rather it’s a safety that has great and even infinite power about it, but also infinite good. And so it is, we are to become safe people, people who have been made safe! Jesus himself was the safest person in history. He went to the cross and, if you look at the cross, you see the essence of that. Jesus Christ would go and give his life up rather than to do any harm to his people. He would take it all rather than have someone else take the hit.

You probably remember where you were, if you were alive and on the earth, when Ronald Reagan was shot, in March of 1981. I remember where I was. I was at a Racket Club. I had just played about an hour and a half of racquetball and came out of the locker room and on the television in the lobby was the coverage of Ronald Reagan being shot and the report at that time that he had died of those wounds. And as the story unfolded, you remember what happened, and maybe even remember the name of Timothy McCarthy. McCarthy was the secret service agent who literally took the bullet that was aimed at Reagan; he took it in his own abdomen rather than have that bullet strike the President. That is the kind of thing Jesus Christ did, rather than hammer you and me, rather than bring down the twelve legions of angels to obliterate everything, he took it on himself so that you and I would not have to. To bring us life and life eternal. To bring us that elemental, fundamental goodness and gravity of life that is of the essence of God’s eternal Kingdom. We are made safe. Are you a safe person? God calls us as those persons who have been made safe, who have said yes to Jesus Christ, to then be safe people, people who would be willing to “take the hit” rather than someone else. People who are willing to take on a burden rather than crushing someone else with it. Persons who are willing to stand in for someone else, rather than someone else being harmed. To take harm, rather than having a situation where someone else is harmed. That is true strength. That is true safety, which is connected intimately with goodness. Jesus Christ finally is not safe in the way we generally think of it – but he’s good. And because of that, He is safe. In Him you and I are eternally, spiritually secure. We’re called to welcome others into that priceless relationship of eternal security and safety and meaning. No effort is too great to accomplish that great end. You have a role to play in all of that. A role uniquely yours. Come and secure your place in God’s great work of rescue and redemption in our world. Amen.