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Column: The struggle to imitate Jesus

By DR. MARK ROSS/Columnist

I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
--Mohandas Gandhi

I have never met Ohio science teacher John Freshwater. Yet, I have no doubt he wants to be like Jesus. In fact, he wants it so badly that he lost his job over it, and he should have.
When the Mount Vernon School System finally fired the middle school science teacher, it was long overdue. Parents had complained for years that Freshwater did more preaching than teaching. He insisted upon keeping a Bible on his desk, despite the fact that his supervisors had asked him numerous times to remove it. Freshwater persistently taught creationism alongside evolution, again despite school policy. He was a science teacher, but was constantly critical of science at each point where it disagreed with his own personal faith.
I am certain that John Freshwater sincerely did all of that and more as a statement of his faith and as a way to imitate Jesus. I am also certain that is why the school system was as patient with the teacher as it was. Two weeks ago, the school board ran out of patience, and fired John Freshwater. Not only did he want to be like Jesus, Freshwater wanted others to also. He went too far.
Using a science device called a high-frequency generator, Freshwater burned the image of a cross on a few of his students. One of those students suffered all night with the burn, which lasted several weeks. The parents of that student filed suit against John Freshwater and the Mount Vernon School System.
Jesus said, “If you want to be my disciple, take up your cross, and follow me.” With those words, Jesus set the standard for following or imitating him. Yet, what did he mean by taking up or bearing the cross? Certainly, he did not mean it literally, but he did mean it seriously.
For the Apostle Paul it meant the scars he carried from his mission work. The authorities had jailed and beaten him. Crowds had stoned him and left him for dead. Ships had gone down with Paul aboard. He lived for months at a time chained between two Roman Centurions. He wrote, “I bear the marks of Jesus branded on my body.”
In one of his visions, Saint Francis of Assisi saw Christ upon the cross. Legends claim that following the vision the saint forever bore the marks of crucifixion on his own body. Since that time, other Christians have sought to imitate Christ by bearing the same marks, the stigmata.
I wonder if John Freshwater was thinking of the stigmata when he began to use the high-frequency generator. I wonder if somehow he thought that if he and his students suffered enough they would be imitating Christ or draw close to him.
Suffering will often do just that. Yet, for all of the scars that Paul carried, none of them was self-inflicted. Jesus did not welcome the cross; he dreaded the cross. He was willing to suffer, but he did not want to suffer.
It is a good thing to want to imitate Jesus, even to be willing to bear a cross. Yet, there is a vast difference between bearing a cross and wearing a cross, whether it is a piece of jewelry or a burn.

Dr. Mark Ross is the pastor of Marion Baptist Church. To learn more about MBC, visit http://www.marionbaptistchurchva.com/
To listen to a service from Marion Baptist Church and view photos of the church, please follow the video link at the top of this page. The audio of the service is courtesy of MBC and WOLD 102.5.