world.
Hebrews 12:2–3
March 20
The Strident Christ
There are many ways by which we can typify and imagine Christ: the Innocent Child, the Suffering Servant, the Obedient Son of the Father, the Reformist Rabbi, and the Challenging Prophet. However, the Son of God is always beyond all of our images of him.
How we imagine Jesus often says more about ourselves than it does about the Savior of the world. We try to make Jesus fit into our ideas and values. Often the Christ we supposedly worship is the Christ of our own making.
That we have cast Jesus in soft pastel hues in the modern world says more about the kind of world we have and the kind of savior we want. As a consequence, Jesus is more a loving buddy or friend than a fearless and strong leader. This is because we don’t want Jesus to lead us. We only want him to help us. We don’t want to obey him.
William of St. Thierry, the abbot of a Benedictine monastery in the twelfth century, casts Jesus in very different terms. He writes, “our most powerful athlete, having entered as it were the stadium of the world, was anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit for the match and rejoiced as a first to run the course of human dispensation.”79
It may well help us overcome our soft Christianity by thinking about Jesus as the fearless leader, the valiant Son of the Father, the brave as well as the obedient Son of God. This picture of Christ may challenge us to become the fearless followers of Christ rather than the consumer Christians we are at present.
Thought
If we want to remake ourselves, we may need to remake our image of Christ. Or more particularly, we may need to let Christ confront us in his otherness.
Luke 15:3–7
March 21
Lost and Found
There are two interrelated themes in the biblical story—our flight from God and God’s search to find us. In the triumph of grace it is the latter that wins the day.
The ancient church father St. Augustine said it well: “I would not find
myself, much less thee.”80
This is so in a number of ways: we do not so much find God, it is God who finds us. Salvation is not the human climb up to the divine. It is the divine stooping down to embrace a wayward humanity. The great theme of the biblical story is the incarnation.
This, of course, does not mean the human is simply factored out. No. In our seeking God is already drawing us. And in our response of faith grace has already been given us. And in homecoming there is already having been found.
But the church father also reminds us that finding God and
finding ourselves are intimately related. This is because God is not only our salvation, but also our true home. We are truly human in
relationship with God and others. We are less than what we can be in flight, in isolation, and without an abiding center.
Thus coming to God does not take us away from ourselves, as if we do violence to ourselves in the act of faith. The opposite is true. We come home to ourselves in committing ourselves to God’s embrace. And in the face of the God of grace we can more clearly see ourselves.
Reflection
Being found is not simply a return to a previously known place. It is entering a new reality.
1 Thessalonians 5:21
March 22
Discernment
It is important to give ourselves to the wisdom of others. The church in its long journey has produced many saints,
teachers, prophets, pastors, and activists. From these we can learn much. But we must practice discernment, for these too must be subject to the wisdom of the gospel.
There are two extremes that must be avoided. The first is to live the
Christian life without tradition and assume Christianity can be wholly reinvented. The second, at the other extreme of the continuum, is to live the whole of one’s Christian life simply bounded by Christian tradition.
There are much more creative ways to live. These are: to be fully aware of the Spirit’s renewing and creative energy; to be deeply immersed in the biblical story; to respect the church’s long march in history; and to respond to the issues of our day. To integrate these various dimensions makes the Christian life sustainable, exiting, relevant, and orthodox.
St. Basil, in giving Christian advice, points out that it is important to listen to the wisdom of the past. But he goes on to say, “Do not surrender your mind as if it were a ship’s rudder answering to control. No; take what suits you, and learn to discard the rest.”81 Thus, he points us to a creative reappropriation of the past and not to a dull conformity.
Here is the call to discernment for which we need the Spirit’s
guidance to gain humility and courage. And courage is always needed when one seeks to be relevant.
Thought
Eat the fish but leave the bones. Hold fast to the good of the past and
daringly embrace the new.
John 20:23
March 23
Sin Bearer
Jesus is the great sin bearer who in his own body took to himself the sin and suffering of the world. Such a task is beyond us. But we can carry the burdens of another person.
There are burdens a person should bring only to the foot of the cross. Only Christ can take up these burdens, concerns, failures, and sins. And in the very act of laying these things down there can be release and forgiveness. The great exchange Martin Luther so often wrote about can take place. God takes our sin, but gives us his forgiveness.
But there are some burdens one may take up on another person’s behalf. It is possible to believe for another when his or her faith wavers. It is possible to intercede for another when her or his prayer life is all but abandoned. It is appropriate to comfort when the other is grief stricken. It is possible to be there for another.
St. Catherine of Siena used to say to sinners who came to her, “Have no fear, I will take the burden of your sins.”82
This does not mean she saw herself in the place of Jesus the Savior. Rather, it was that the person coming for help could not see the Savior’s forgiveness and embrace. St. Catherine then in faith, prayer, and suffering “carried” that person to Jesus.
This is the power of intercessory prayer. It is the power of radical identification. It is being willing to stand in another person’s place.
Prayer
Lord, help me and give me the grace to be there for others, and to carry others to you. Amen.
Mark
