Jesus was sent into our world, not kept out of our world. In the same way, he sends his followers into the world; he does not extract them out of it. The endgame of the kingdom of God is not a life lived in religious domesticity, but a sojourning out in the wild.
“I’d like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.”
-Chris McCandless, Into the Wild (by John Krakauer)
An important point when it comes to Jesus’ life in the wild—how he lived, how he sent out his disciples to live—is that it was not the “helter-skelter style of life” of McCandless. Jesus lived a bit more purposefully. Unpredictable, yet not unintentional. Jesus’ life was “set apart,” specially commissioned. This is the meaning of the religious word sanctified. His was not merely a rescue mission, but an invasion mission. Salvation is not merely from but to.
As with Jesus, so with us.
