"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” " -- Galatians 2:19-20

     Hannah Hurnard was a Christian missionary who served in Palestine from 1932 to 1948. In her book, Hinds’ Feet on High Places, she tells an allegory describing the journey of Much-Afraid from the Valley of Humiliation to the High Places, undertaken at the invitation of the Chief Shepherd. Shortly after her journey begins, the Chief Shepherd asks her to follow him in an unexpected direction. Let’s listen in to this conversation.

     ...As she looked out over what seemed like an endless desert, the only path she could see led farther and farther away from the High Places, and it was all desert.

     Then he [the Chief Shepherd] answered her very quietly, “Much-Afraid, do you love me enough to accept the postponement and the apparent contradiction of the promise, and to go down there with me into the desert?”

     She was still crouching at his feet, sobbing as if her heart would break, but now she looked up through her tears, caught his hand in hers, and said, trembling, “I do love you, you know that I love you. Oh, forgive me because I can’t help my tears. I will go down with you into the wilderness, right away from the promise, if you really wish it. Even if you cannot tell me why it has to be, I will go with you, for you know I do love you, and you have the right to choose for me anything that you please.”

     It was very early morning, and high above them, hanging in the sky over the silent expanse of desert, was a young crescent moon and the morning star shining like a brilliant jewel close beside it. There Much-Afraid built her first altar on the mountains, a little pile of broken rocks, and then, with the Shepherd standing close beside her, she laid down on the altar her trembling, rebelling will. A little spurt of flame came from somewhere and in an instant nothing but a heap of ashes was lying on the altar. That is to say, she thought at first that there were only ashes, but the Shepherd told her to look closer, and there among the ashes she saw a little stone of some kind, a dark-colored, common-looking pebble.

     “Pick it up and take it with you,” said the Shepherd gently, “as a memorial of this altar which you built, and all that it stands for.”

     ...Then they began the descent into the desert, and at the first step Much-Afraid felt a thrill of the sweetest joy and comfort surge through her, for she found that the Shepherd himself was going down with them…”

     As followers of Jesus Christ we are asked by our Lord to make such sacrifices of our “trembling, rebellious wills” in similar fashion to the Great Shepherd’s request of Much-Afraid. In fact, in Galatians 2:19-20 Paul says that the one who chooses to follow Jesus is like one who has no life of his/her own: I have been crucified with Christ!

     In 2008 the people of Grace Baptist Church will seek to wrestle as a community with these words of Paul and what it means to live the Crucified Life for Christ. I will be preaching about the Crucified Life and it’s ramifications throughout the year. Our Small Groups will be studying about the Crucified Life as they study Romans 8. Each member of Grace will be challenged to listen to the New Testament (the book describing the Crucified Life) from Easter to Pentecost. I invite you to make a special attempt to attend worship on January 6th, as we begin the journey of the Crucified Life in 2008.

     1 Hurnard, Hannah. Hinds’ Feet on High Places. Living Books, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.: Wheaton, 1977, pp. 83-84.