It’s not that there is no comfort in Christianity, or that we do not become all that we were created to become, or that we do not use our full powers of intellect and discernment, but it is that the blessings and fullness come to us most completely in the context of following after Jesus in a life of sacrifice on behalf of the needs of others. As Isaiah writes, it is while suffering for the cause of God that comfort and help are made available. The Psalmist insists that the Lord saves and gives grace while we follow Him. Of course, it is because of following the Lord that we ended up in the kind of trouble from whence we needed rescued in the first place.

James goes on to clarify that our faith is one that is demonstrated in works that have an element of risk and sacrifice. He is not defining works as acts of pious devotion, rather good works entail those actions that take us out of our comfort zone and into the pain of others. James is not saying that it is by doing such good works that we are saved but that by our good works salvation is brought to others and at the same time the doing of these works effect or make real the grace of salvation within us. And indeed these works are a matter of faith. They can not be done without faith, without confidence, that God is at work within us to perform his divine purpose in the situation.

Some might say that the only level of involvement from God in our efforts to help those who suffer is to be present with us and with the suffering people whom we serve. He merely empathizes with our tears. God does indeed suffer when people suffer. However, God is not merely empathicly present, he is active to bring change. God is not without power to work within the situation to bring alleviation from the causes of the suffering. God is a God of justice and he does act on behalf of the oppressed and injured. It is, however, a question of time and of means. If I do not seem to see God at work in history, be that my own personal history or that of others around me or of the world, it is because I have a too limited time frame compared to that of a God of eternity or because I have failed to understand the true dynamics of the problem and therefore am looking for the wrong solution.

Faith does not mean that I involve myself in good works, in cross bearing, out of some mere system of righteous ethics, doing now what the so called historical Jesus did then. Faith means that through my good works, my cross bearing, I believe Jesus will actually be incarnated in that situation in the present moment. When we take up our cross, Jesus is on it. It is that incarnation and recrucifixion of Jesus in the present moment that exponentially multiplies the effectiveness of our actions. It is not just my good works or my cross; it is the actual working and cross bearing of Christ.

It is this faith that allows us to risk, to suffer, to carry the cross, to die. We do so knowing that it will not be without benefit. We do so knowing that Christ would not ask us to take up a cross if it was not going to change history. Christ was not a victim of historical forces. He was not powerless to the structures of the world. Rather, he freely chose the way of the Cross as an offensive maneuver by which he took control of history, becoming the primordial event. All of history points to and moves away from the Cross and through it receives all meaning. And it is through the Cross that all structures are rendered powerless. Therefore, as we take up the cross, in faith following Jesus, we with him become history makers and earth shakers.