Longing for a New Mirror
Jim Carrey has a legendary speech at the Golden Globes about being a 2-time Golden Globe winner. If you haven’t seen it, take a minute and watch it here.
What I love about this one-minute clip is not only that it is hilarious, but that he is mocking the entire enterprise he is apart of while simultaneously revealing the desperation of the human heart. The fantasy is that if we only can get over the next hill, get the next promotion, grow our church a bit more, or get that best-selling book (or maybe if we can just go viral) then finally things will work.
Jim’s speech reveals an insight into the human condition, revealing how easy it is to fuel a life with this kind of fantasy.
As I was thinking about this speech, and how Jim was trying to be a mirror to those sitting in front of him - trying to show them how flimsy and superficial this all is - I couldn’t help but think about the cross.
The cross is this kind of mirror.
The cross is an event that stands at the center of our Christian existence and seeks to harmonize everything else around it. Our flesh is a discordant note to this tune. Our flesh seeks to establish harmonies that make the cross discordant. But the cross is always discordant to the things of the world, the flesh, and the devil (James 3:13ff).
Too often we reduce this into thinking that as long as we do good things and have good motivations then it must be “Christian,” when, in fact, without love these actions are mere “noisy gongs and clanging symbols” (1 Cor. 13:1).
This is what Paul is doing in Philippians 2 and 3. In Philippians 2, we see the attitude we are supposed to have, which is made manifest in the actions of Jesus, who, though God, took on humiliation and shame to bear the weight of the cross. In response, we find Paul, in the shadow of the cross, looking over his impressive worldly resume:
“If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
Paul had an incredibly impressive resume, and easily could have stood before the mirror of his resume and found peace, confidence, and stability in the flesh. But before the cross this all proved to be trash. The cross doesn’t make these things unimportant, but it reorders them around an entirely new set of priorities. Before the cross, your ministry, academic, or professional resume means nothing. Before the cross the question is: how does my life conform to Christ’s?
Like Jim’s speech, we are all standing before others as mirrors. Do we mirror the reality of what it means to follow Jesus, honestly struggling with the truth of our hearts in light of the truth of his grace, mercy, and patience? Are we mirrors of a different way, a longing to be self-sustaining and self-made people? Does our life proclaim the truth that, as Christians, our lives are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:2) or do they proclaim the reality that we think if we just do one more great thing then everything will finally make sense?