Mugged by Faith: Ch. XII - Passion

Earlier I wrote about being "Mugged by Reality", the process through which Conservatives understand some harsh truths about the Fallen World we live in and how we deal with it.
Emotionally, I would say this is a neutral experience, except for ex-liberals who probably have great difficulty letting go of their prior beliefs.

Truthfully, we Conservatives take on this "Mugged by Reality" as if it's a trophy or a right of passage.
Indeed it is: getting "Mugged by Reality" is a transition between a child-like view of the world and into that of an adult.

Now it's time to talk about a totally different kind of "Mugging", a much much more troubling and painful kind.
"Mugged by Faith".
Just like "Mugged by Reality", being "Mugged by Faith" is finding yourself face to face with an undeniable and unyielding fact which demands a real reaction from you.
Only now, it's for Christians and they are being mugged by the fact that they believe in God, and there is no changing that.

Why is it a "mugging"?
Because it is at this time when a Christian learns some inconvenient facts about God. Namely: He wants you do to certain things and not do certain things.
Suddenly, you find yourself realizing that despite dying for ours sins, Jesus had no intention of handing out cheap grace.
Hence, being "Mugged by Faith" is to realize you have two choices: stop believing in God; or start giving up certain things and taking up others things.

It's not always the same thing: alcoholics have to give up drinking all together because they can't control themselves; this is not true of non-alcoholics who enjoy a good brew.
For me, what Jesus was telling me to give up was my Pharisee-ish attitude towards life: my self-righteousness by means of hatred toward the Godless.

This was not as easy to do as it may sound.
Remember, that I lived life as a willing loser before adopting this Pharisee mentality
Being a Pharisee made me feel good. It vindicated my past embarrassments. I enjoyed feeling some self-esteem rather than self-loathing. I liked feeling strong and knowing, not weak and ignorant.
It excused me from my childish angst.

And now, I'm being asked by God Himself to give it up; the very alternative to a self-destructive life is no longer good for me.
I based so much of myself on this mentality, that to give this up would be mental suicide: a deliberate killing of my very personality and identity.

To say I didn't want to do this is an understatement.
It was downright painful; as painful as being told I must walk into the fire and burn alive rather than do the natural thing and run away to preserve myself.

There was one alternative: call it quits; toss in the towel and decide that God was make believe after all and become an atheist.
See, suddenly I felt sympathy for all of those atheist claims that "God" is some sadomasochistic figment of our imaginations.

Eh, I have gone too far down the path of doubt to be stop believing now.
Besides, what a risk to take! I don't want to go to Hell simply because the game got too tough.

So, against every ounce of resistance from my body and mind, I bit the bullet and started killing my prideful Pharisee-ish self.

It was a Passion, in the original meaning of the word: Suffering.

Old School Catholicism started to have a certain ring of the truth to them:

We know that our old self was crucified with [Jesus] so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. (Romans 6: 6)

St. Paul was often fond of this concept of dying in Christ: metaphorically being crucified just as Jesus was.

Many people did not understand Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ; especially the graphic violence.
Those who did tended to be of the more Classical thought of Theology: the study of the very nature of God, mankind and sin.
The Passion was Jesus' bail-out of us: He paid the price of sin so that we don't have to.
Instead of our certain damnation, the only sinless man in history died a brutal death (for we Christians believe that it is sin that causes the body to die).
But He rose again, exemplifying the fact that through the power of God, we can move on after being killed by the sin that has enslaved us.

He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53)

Every lash of a whip, every punch, every kick, each nail into his limbs, each milliliter of spilled blood that is recreated in The Passion of the Christ is not just about the price that Jesus paid for our sins, but instead the mythological passion that we must go through!
We undergo our own Passions when we decide to accept the fact that sin has become an inherent part of our bodies and that we must die to it so that we can resurrect.
We believe this literally in an Apocalyptic way, but also metaphorically in our own personal struggles-kind-of-way.

I was asked to give up John Wayne as my hero and make Christ my hero.
And what did Christ do? Blow away the bad guys?
No!
He let the bad guys kill Him.

Keep in mind that my bad guys aren't really the Liberals or the Godless of the world; they were merely the screens I was projecting my own insecurities on.
My bad guys were my own feelings of shame and self-hatred: my very mental self.

So, instead of continuing the practice of projecting these imperfections on others and hating them as a result, I would instead give them free reign to kill me.
It was painful. I liked being the person who killed them!
But I allowed these feelings to have their way with me and kill me.

They killed me because they drove me to hate others; the refusal to do so is then to let them shrivel up and die.
Because they were apart of me, like a parasite, I died to.

I didn't like this because I didn't fancy who I would turn into once this was all over.
My only hope was to look to Jesus as the replacement of Western Tough Guys as my new Role Model.