Surviving The Fall, 34

Gentle Reader, this is a parent-advisory warning. Today's post is going to be explicitly Christian. Reader discretion advised. Anyway, I was reading this morning in Matthew's Gospel the account of the Crucifixion of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Stubborn atheists and pigheaded nonbelievers really need to read this part of the scriptures. I get so sick and tired of mouth-breathers who insist that the Bible says this and the Bible says that and therefore why should anyone believe it, and those are people who either have never read the book or have read it so little and have taken so much out of context that they are simply not going to get it. But so it is, if your only interest in approaching a matter is solely to discredit. But if you really want to get to the heart of the Christian faith, you have to read the four Gospels. Or at least one of the Gospels. You don't have to believe that it is the Word of God. I don't believe that it is the Word of God. I do believe that Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible contains the message about the Word of God. So, I am not telling you to believe what you are reading, but to open your mind a bit, anyway, and consider what is being said. In today's reading I find myself focussing on the way everyone was mocking and reviling Jesus for claiming to be the Son of God and the King of Israel, though he never made such specific claims. They were made about him. He was just there doing as led by the Holy Spirit. Then I tried to imagine a purely secular interpretation of the life of Jesus. A man purported to have supernatural abilities and divine provenance, but also showing all the evidence through his words and teachings and his miraculous works that there was something at least a little above the ordinary about this man. He was condemned and executed both as a political and a religious threat. The Romans feared that he would lead an insurrection against their rule, and the Pharisees feared that the religious orthodoxy that controlled Jewish society was being threatened and undermined. Jesus was not interested in doing either of those things. According to Christian believe, and this is my belief as well, he was simply there, as God making himself visible and approachable in human flesh, so that we our selves could see, hear and touch in Jesus the true and living God from whom this very universe comes and owes its very existence, and that this same God, in human flesh, lived among us, suffered among us, and died among us, sharing and bearing the full burden and horror of our broken and wounded humanity. Believing, or rather knowing, this, does not make it to believe in the Resurrection, which would have only been inevitable. But back to Jesus, the man, the human being. Someone who appeared to believe that he was God, or if not God, then surely sent by God, and would easily be accused of madness. And that was in an epoch when people believed in spiritual things. We now live in a very post-Christian era and the ruling ethos is secularism, but not simply secularism but a kind of undeclared atheism. Here in multicultural and multi-religious Canada we are all free to believe whatever the hell we want, as long as it doesn't impede our responsibilities of good citizenship. However, when some of us come to recognize as true the claim that Jesus is God made flesh that really changes things, and our faith in him is not nearly a passive belief or a benign assent in the existence of God, but a living and dynamic force comprising, devotion, trust, love, loyalty and passion. I am not suggesting here that this is the truth, even though I believe this myself, but that we really need to review and renew the way we understand faith. I do not know about other religions, but I would assume that this holds true across the religious smorgasbord. This also suggests, by the way, that this kind of informed and active faith is not going to necessarily work in favour of the obligations of good citizenship, since the demands of our God are going to supersede the mandates of the state. This has always been. For example, military service. Some Christians, myself for example, are dedicated pacifists. We do not believe in war, or in violence as a means of settling conflict, not even as a last ditch inevitability. This means that, regardless of what our government tells us, we are not going to join the army, and in the event of Canada ever going to war, neither are we going to endorse the conflict, and some of us are likely to even work against the war effort. Because of our faith. For me, as a Christian of faith, this has long resulted in a very difficult and sometimes dangerous dance as I seek every day to balance my loyalties, respecting my legitimate obligations towards my nation and my community, while giving priority to the demands of love of the Kingdom of God.