Rain on Your Own Parade

Photo of these grim, determined lasses comes from here

 

"To follow Jesus is to ask for it to rain on your own parade."  --Alex Bryan

When our pastor stated this last year, I just about fell off my pew.  I wrote it in the little book that I carry to church with me, the one that looks like it's from northern India with inlaid mother-of-pearl, and has lots of blank lined pages and fits nicely in my purse.  I've looked back at that quote several times.  Each time I look at it, the original context has faded a little bit but the wallop of the quote remains.

The point is not that living the Christian life is miserable.  It is, sometimes, but so is living a non-Christian life.  And the point is not that Jesus is some sort of sadistic monster who intentionally causes us pain.  Reading the gospels to understand who Jesus was and what His approach was makes that fallacy plain.

The point is this:  this parade, yours and mine, is one that highlights ourselves as though we were right, righteous, good, interesting, worthy, impressive, and worth celebrating.  And we are some of those things.  I think that most people intend (and sometimes succeed) to be good, to be helpful to others.  And people are worth celebrating in terms of their value.  But what we are not, is righteous or impressive.  We are all capable of, and occasionally commit, great evil.  We are all centered on ourselves nearly all the time.  We're laser-focused how to feel good and comfortable and superior to those around us, whether they be in our family, our workplace or our social milieu.

When you choose to follow Christ, you take up a cross.  In other words, you submit to something and someone greater than yourself, and therefore have to give up one of the most precious things in your life--your self-gratification, self-justification and narcissistic tendencies.  You have to take that immense, paradoxical step of admitting that your personal worth is not much ... and yet it is everything, because God gave of himself--even to the point of experiencing death--out of love for you.

And then the new parade is not about you.  Let the rain fall on that old one, because it's going to.  You've been marching in a grim parade anyhow, one that doesn't recognize a greater purpose, and doesn't accept  submission to God and his purposes, one that I suspect is rather lonely and cold when you belly-up and admit it.  The rain has to fall on your own parade because you have to give up your self-righteousness, your pride, your shabby bits of flamboyance about who you are, your willingness to set yourself up critically against the next guy and show the hardened edge of unforgiveness.

"To follow Jesus is to ask for it to rain on your own parade."  The odd thing is that at this point in my life, having experienced some torrential downpours on my own parade, I find Alex's quote to be an extremely winsome and hopeful statement.  I'd like to take my participation to that other parade, thanks.