Following Jesus has cost me my innocence. I have discovered that being a Christian means I cannot ignore the poor and the hungry, the lonely and the outcast. I have heard God's command to love my enemy. God has whispered to me as God has whispered to you that we are to live lives of compassion and charity, and try as I might to ignore such a haunting demand, I can't. We can't. We cannot pretend that life is good because we are comfortable when most of the world cries out in pain. We can no longer pretend that the problem is too big or too complex for one Christian to really matter. No longer. The grace that is so costly has gripped our hearts and it will not let go. It has cost us our innocence.

Someone told me that there were times when they felt profoundly alone as a Christian. The world scoffs at those who take following Jesus seriously. So much else is deemed so much more important. From the minor conflicts of a Sunday morning to awesome moral decisions, the world laughs and shakes its head over those who follow the one who is love. The gospels report that Jesus was alone, as well. There were times when he had to come to grips with the reality of no easy answers, no simple solutions. The agony of aloneness is the cost for some.

What has Christianity cost you? If the answer comes slowly or not at all, wonder then if it really is Christianity. Week after week, I receive brochures promising new strategies for filling up a church's pews. By and large, they are centered around the premise that Christianity shouldn't cost anything. What we need to do, I am told, is to give the people what they want and what they want is peace, prosperity and pious platitudes. Make the folk comfortable the brochures urge me, string them along with pretty songs and big smiles. The Bible tells us that large crowds were following Jesus. I suppose they were hoping for the same sort of thing. So what did Jesus say? He told them what it will cost. He told them what it would mean. He told them the truth.

There is more, of course. And here is where the paradoxical nature of following Christ comes once again. The cost of losing our innocence, the cost of our aloneness, the cost of picking up a cross and following is no cost at all to those who have paid it. I understand that won't make sense to all of us but I want to say it again. The cost of following Jesus is no cost to those who have paid it.