IT’S NOT JUST WHY OR WHAT. IT’S HOW.

What is your feeling as you contemplate the year ahead? I suspect you’re probably hoping it will be a year in which you connect more deeply with God and those around you, and live the most meaningful and fulfilled life possible. I suspect you would love for this year to be better than the one we’ve just left behind, and if that’s the case, I want to suggest three questions that can help you get there. The first question is why: Why are you here? What, from God’s perspective, is your reason for being alive here and now, to think, speak, and act in this world? The second question is what: What do you need to do to fulfil God’s why for your life? What kind of thoughts, words, and actions will help you to express your reason for being alive here and now? And the final question is how: How should you think, speak, and act, in order to live the life you long for in the coming year?

Over the last few decades, thanks to people like Oprah and Rick Warren, many of us have explored our why. Some of us may still be trying to work it out, but most of us have a sense that answering the why question is something we should be doing. And we probably all have at least some idea of what we’re planning to do in the year ahead. Our world is so focused on the what of our lives that it’s usually fairly easy to fill our lives with lots of thoughts, words, and actions.

But the how question seems to be the one that we are least likely to address. We often have a sense that if we know why we’re here and what we have to do, we’ll automatically do it in the best way. But that’s not the case.

Between 1999 and 2005, Lance Armstrong won a record seven Tour De France titles and a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympics. But in 2012, a US Anti-Doping Agency Investigation found that he had been using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career, stripped him of his victories, and banned him from professional sports for life. They stated that he had been the ringleader of “the most sophisticated and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”1 In a 2013 CNN interview, he confessed that at least some of the allegations were true. So, his why was to be a professional athlete. His what was to ride his bike and win races. But his how, was to break the rules and use performance-enhancing drugs. What is your response to that?

It is not just what we do or why we do it that counts. How we do it matters as much, or even more. As Richard Rohr says, “How we do anything is how we do everything.”2 So, if we want to have a connected and fulfilling year, we will have to get the how right.

THE TRUE SON OF GOD REVEALED

That’s why the story of Jesus’ baptism is so important. John the Baptiser had been speaking in loud and dramatic terms about the coming messiah. But then Jesus showed up at the river, and John was confused.

He looked like everyone else, and he wanted John to baptise him like everyone else.

John already knew who Jesus was—in the Gospel narrative, he had known his cousin since before he was born. But like everyone else, he viewed the messiah through the lens of the great and victorious King David. In the Hebrew Scriptures, David was called God’s son. The Messiah was supposed to be both a descendant of David and, like David, the son of God. But that may have meant that John expected Jesus to make a glorious entrance—perhaps force the corrupt leaders to bow to him—and take over the baptisms as a way to rally an army, with John as the first recruit, to overthrow the Romans.

John knew why Jesus had come: to be the messiah, the liberator. He knew what Jesus was meant to do: establish God’s reign of justice and love on the earth. But, he hadn’t understood the how.

As Jesus went down into the water, Jesus revealed God’s how in the words he spoke to John: “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.” God’s will for Jesus was for him to surrender, not dominate, and he did—he surrendered to his divine parent’s will, going through baptism to stand with humanity, become one of us, and share our lives with all its mess and brokenness. He came not to judge but to forgive; not to make war, but to reconcile; not to change the world using systems of power and wealth, but by changing one life at a time with grace and love.

So great was Jesus’ surrender to God that he willingly surrendered to John, even though, in the Gospel account, they both knew he was greater than John. And in the end, he even surrendered to his enemies and endured the cross—choosing to love rather than to fight or kill.

FOLLOWING JESUS INTO TRUE SURRENDER

Remember Richard Rohr’s words: “How we do anything is how we do everything.” If Jesus began his ministry in surrender, then Jesus is still the one who gives himself for the sake of love, grace, and service. And, as at his baptism, God is pleased (3:17)—which reveals what God is like and what God’s will is.

When Jesus calls us to follow him, he is saying that we need to live our lives the same way he lived his: in surrender to God’s dream of love and justice for all. And, like Jesus, we are called to serve others with grace, forgiveness, love, and service. This, claims Jesus, is the way to our most fulfilled, meaningful, authentic, and connected life. So how do we follow Jesus into this life of surrender?

Firstly, we can release any ideas about Jesus that contradict what is revealed in his baptism. Not all Jesuses are equal. There are those who proclaim hatred and violence in Jesus’ name. There are those who are arrogant and abusive in Jesus’ name. There are those who use the name of Jesus to justify their excessive accumulation of wealth and power.

On 6 January 2017, the then South African President, Jacob Zuma, stated that the birthday of the ruling ANC party was like the birthday of Jesus. He also said, “These things are the same, you can never separate them. The coming of the son to wash away our sins and the birth of the ANC to free people.”3 Politicians may try to use Jesus’ name like this, but this is not the Jesus we see being baptised in the Jordan.

So, if we have any ideas about Jesus that do not pass the baptism test, we need to let them go. If our Jesus is not about surrender to God’s way—the way of standing with broken and sinful humanity, and serving them to the death—then we must re-examine our ideas about Jesus.

Secondly, we need to align our how with the how of Jesus. It’s not just what we do and why we do it that matters. It’s how. And “how we do anything is how we do everything.” Jesus was bold to proclaim that his how is the only one that can lead us to connection with God and others, and to a life of abundance, meaning, and fulfilment—and his how is the way of surrender to God’s reign. As described in Philippians 2:6-11, we are to follow Jesus’ example by humbly loving one another, refusing to put our own agendas, desires, security, or ambition first, but choosing instead to give ourselves to serve the needs of others before our own.

Peter Rollins tells the story of the priest in the movie, Amen, who was horrified by the death camps in World War II, and struggled with his church’s choice of wilful ignorance. At one point, he wonders aloud to his Cardinal whether it would be possible for all the Christians in Germany to convert to Judaism, making it impossible for the Nazi’s to condemn such a huge number of powerful and socially integrated people. His idea is rejected, but the priest is unable to do nothing, and so he turns from his faith and his church and converts to Judaism, suffering with his Jewish companions, and finally, ending up on a train to Auschwitz.4 Imagine a world filled with people willing to surrender like that priest!

How you do anything is how you do everything. And if we desire to follow the way of Jesus, our how has to be the way of surrender. This way can be hard and sometimes even painful. But it also leads us into the deepest possible experience of life and connection. Perhaps it’s time we give this how a try in the year to come.