Easter and Pride

As Easter approaches I like to listen to Handel's Messiah, both the Christmas and Easter sections. One of the great things about that work is how the words come directly from Scripture. 'Worthy is the Lamb' stands out in the Easter portion, and the words come directly from Revelation  5:12, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.' One of the remarkable things about Christianity is that  Jesus' triumph over sin and death results from His humbling of Himself in self-sacrifice. His resurrection that we celebrate at Easter calls me to humble myself in view of His sacrifice and to confess that my pride is very often the main thing that keeps from experiencing God's presence.

In contemplating this I was reminded of the apostle Paul's words in Philippians 3 in which he recalls how as a Pharisee he had much pride in his own goodness but had come to realize that all of that was
'manure' (Phil. 3:8). He realized that based on Easter, on the death and resurrection of Jesus (Phil. 3:10).

So, after listening to Handel and contemplating this as I did my time on the treadmill, I was drawn to listen to a song by Caedmon's Call that I think captures this attitude of Paul. The song is entitled 'I Boast No More' and goes like this:

       No more my God, I boast no more
       Of all the duties I have done
       I quit the hopes I had before
       To trust the merits of Thy Son

       Now, for the loss I bear His name
       What was my gain I count my loss
       My former pride I call my shame
       And nail my glory to His cross

      Yes, and I must, I will esteem
       All things but loss for Jesus' sake
       Oh may my soul be found in Him
       And of His righteousness partake.

       The best obedience of my hands
        Does not appear before Thy throne
       But faith can answer Thy demands
       By pleading what my Lord has done.

All of this speaks to me of pride and my innate tendency to want to be my own savior. Easter confronts me with the reality of what God has done on my behalf and makes me ashamed of my pride. C. S. Lewis writes about pride as 'the complete anti-God state of mind' and that 'pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature'. Through pride I compete against God to be my own god, to provide my own salvation, to be the center of my own little universe.  Paul saw that in himself when he looked at the cross, when he comtemplated the events of that first Easter.

When I think about pride I often get upset, even angry, at what I see in the world around me. I don't like what I see on the athletic field, or what I see in politics, or what I see in CEOs. I don't like what I hear coaches teaching about pride or what I hear 'leadership' gurus saying about it. But all of that is outside of me and easy for me to criticize. At Easter I am confronted with my own pride and am challenged to lay it down at the cross in repentance, to seek the grace to say with Paul, 'no more'.