Hi
Sorry that the questions I shared last time were just way to hard to think about (thats why I shared them I needed help!).
Another thing I have been thinking about is Jesus.
If we are saved we are in Christ and are working to become Christlike. Why do we as Christians find it so difficult to identify with Jesus in the stories of the bible. (for example if you lead a meditation on Jesus performing a healing the Christians will on the whole identify with the person needing healing rather than the Jesus. Also does this inability to identify personally with Jesus impact on us and our understanding of mission. Is it due to the Kiwi tendency to not be arrogant?, is it because we focus too much on the divine elements of Jesus, is it because we are encouraged to think of ourselves as sinners who need Jesus?
Well enjoy thinking!
Christina
5 comments:
I think one of the problems is that a lot of Christians don’t know how to read the gospels. The default ‘gospel’ that many Christians articulate moves straight from incarnation to atonement with the miracles simply as proofs that Jesus is divine. It also is problematic that for many that Jesus is a divine-superman who remained omnipotent, omniscient and whose humanity is defined only by having a physical body. The main reason for the incarnation is then primarily so that God can exact punishment that our sin deserves on Jesus instead of on us.
I also suspect that for a lot of Christians being human is not a very important category as the main aim is to go to heaven and live in some pseudo-physical or disembodied spiritual state.
A very interesting question...
I think that generally we are enouraged to think that we are sinners who still need saving so we should never be able to identify with Jesus in any of the gospel stories. I don't think its just a Kiwi attitude because this premise would probably ring true in Asia as well. Maybe its just not ok for Christians to identify with Jesus as all since he is fully divine and human and we are mere sinful mortals. Yet at the same time people are encouraged to be 'Jesus' to their communities.
I wonder what the impact would be if people were to imagine a story where Jesus heals some people. They would probably imagine the huge difference and change he would have made in people's lives. And what would happen if they imagined themselves in his shoes in that story. I guess that is the reality, that we are now the ones in the story to carry on the tremendous life changing potential in proclaiming God's Kingdom to the world.
i can understand feeling uncomftable about directly identifying with Jesus. While i think its important to get away from the docetic/dualist/gnostic jesus i think we need to remember a few things.
there is a sense of otherness about Jesus which we shouldn't try to remove. In certain events, like the trial and crucifixion narratives, i believe its healthy for people to find it difficult to identify with Jesus. While we are called to live in the example of the cross, we aren't called to fight the same battle Jesus fought or achieve what he achieved. we inherit part of Jesus' vocation (to be true human beings who live by the spirit, proclaiming the kingdom of God to be the light of the world etc folowing in the example of the cross)but not the whole thing (ie we aren't here to destroy evil, death sin and satan, sum up all things in ourselves, be the prexistant creator or the divine wisdom...)
the problem is that most evangelicals tend to major the part of Jesus vocation that we shouldn't try to closley identify with, and usually we do it in a way that is highly distorted (ie a very crude view of the atonement that focuses heavilly on the legal consequence of sin, and not much on anything else). Grudem anyone?
some suggestions i have to try and help, mostly borrowed from other people:
i think its important to remember
that the church is corporately called to incarnate and be the body of Jesus. If we want to better identify with the vocation of Jesus, we need to do it corporately before we do it on a more personal level. we become like Jesus through union with him, and in union with Jesus we are united with the rest of God's people. Its the community of God that is going to sharpen us so and teach us to identify with Jesus because we identify with the church and participate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus through the church. So having a community that sees itself as filling Jesus' shoes in the world is really important.
I also think we need to make sure we identify with Jesus primarilly through an increased focus on the holy spirit's role in Jesus life. I'm basically ripping off pinnock here, but i think his point is great. If people only focus on grudem esque logos christology, or the kind of "otherness" of jesus and ignore the spirit then its pretty obvious why people always want to feel like the sinner recieving salvation or the person being healed. If we see the sprit as working in tandem with Jesus in events like the miracles, his teaching and wisdom, knowledge etc... then i think its far easier to get at the problem. Then we can see why the church in Acts began to imitate Jesus and why we see such transformation.
hey christina,
just wanted to give you a big thanks for setting me down the whole path of saint vs sinner with jacqui loyd at the vaughan cottage retreat thing. it's been a really significant paradigm shift.
i'd be keen to engage in more conversations with you if you're keen. even if you don't want to, i'm still grateful for your very perceptive observations.
Hi Stu,
Sorry I haven't been checking the blogs very often lately and have only just seen your e-mail.
Great to hear from you, would like to engage in more conversation my e-addy is christina@tscf.org.nz
At the conversation day you mentioned the experince of the abscence of God which I have been thinking about a lot lately, and would love to chat some more.
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