The School of Calvary

“For to me, to live is Christ.” Phil.1:21

There are 3 key words in that sentence, "me", "live" and "Christ". "Live" is defined only in the union between the two extremes. Human finds life in union with the divine. The union of the two gives the resultant called life. Therefore, this is the only justified usage of the term "life".

Some say, to live is money, or pleasure, or fame. All these are merely uncertain things, sluggish sensations and ill-defined existence, or a galvanized spasm, which are not worthy of the name 'life'. These are illegitimate and degrading use of the term 'life'. To these, it can be said, "Thou art dead when thou livest."

The basic elements of a true life consist in love and reverence. Love without reverence is a carnal sentiment which is like a destructive fever. Reverence without love is a cold moonlight which is like a perpetual frost. However, true love kneels in reverence and true reverence yearns in love.

Where can we find this unity of love and reverence? It is in the school of Calvary where we meditate on the passion of Christ. Let it not be said that we are too busy to do so because if we look carefully in the way we use our time, we have wasted a great deal away, which we have no way to account for. To truly live, we need to find time for the highest of all exercises, in the meditation upon the eternal things of God. Love and reverence are not uncertain products of chance. They are sure and stately product of disciplined meditation. If our thought be steadily directed, love and reverence would follow in its train.

We cannot contemplate on Christ's passion without being filled with an awesome sense of reverence and love. In Calvary, we hear Christ's passion, "I love thee more ardently than thou hast loved thy sin." We know how much we have sinned and how much we have loved our sin, and how much we pursue it at all cost. But Christ's love for us is greater and has overcome our love for our sin, and in this eternal entrance we will begin to love Him. Then we will begin to live, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "For to me, to live is Christ."

But let nobody suppose that such mystical union with Christ would drive men into fruitless reveries and idle dreams. The greatest saints have been those whose contemplative life became the fuel that drove them into rigorous lives of self-sacrifice. Thomas Boston said, "Learn the heavenly chemistry of extracting spiritual thing out of earthly things. ... When a soul is heavenly, it will even scrape jewels out of a dunghill."

All this means that a man in Christ can make his adverse environment ideal. He can make his disappointments his ministers, his adversities the King's witnesses, and his bereavements glorify his Lord. Wherever he lives, he lives Christ, who turns water of afflictions into wine of rejoicing.