Good

 . . . yet he did not open his mouth . . . 

 - From Isaiah 52

WWJD

What Would Jesus Do? This catch phrase, from probably the 1990s, has apparently run its course. And that's probably welcome. It came to mean "I'm doing what Jesus would do, and you are not."

But there's nothing quite like having a personal encounter with Death, to illuminate what Christ, or any person, would actually do in some scenario or another.

Follow Christ? When He was being lied about, pursued, attacked, criminalized, investigated, hammered, tortured, He said nothing. Or, He said little. He did not defend Himself. He let it unfold.

Of course this was God's plan all along, and Jesus knew this. He knew that in three days He would be alive again. But this attitude severely undercuts the fact that He was treated as poorly as any human ever had been, more unjustly, more inequitably. Christ was willing to take our penalty. But His passion for justice and life was part of His being. His trial and death was harder for Him to face than any one of us . . . for He had to turn His back on the law, on justice, on peace, on love . . . in order to let it all happen.

Follow Him? No, not us. Our culture, and our generation, believes in "being yourself". Stand up for yourself. Don't let people push you around. Don't apologize.

I was born this way.

I would suggest that there has never been a generation so unwilling to follow Christ . . . really follow Him, than the present one. Purity, justice, sacrifice, serving others: these are not in our vocabulary. And it's ironic, because no generation has given Christ-following more lip service, without accompanying action, than this first generation of the Third Millennium.

He didn't open His mouth.

That's what being "Good" is all about.