Studdert-Kennedy wrote a poem about the day Jesus came to Birmingham, England. His reception was entirely contemporary. No one rejected him because no one paid any attention to him. They simply passed him by.
In commenting on this poem, the late Paul Scherer asked, "What were they doing just then in Birmingham that did not call for Christ?"
That poem would probably be just as appropriate for the towns and cities where you and I live. Would we not just as likely pass him by without even bestowing upon him a second glance? And should not we ask ourselves, what are we doing in our lives this very day that does not call for Christ?
The problem of Christianity today is not that we do not honor Christ, or that we fail to build him churches and celebrate him in song, art and film. The problem is that we do not think him relevant to the lives we live in this world.
We know what Jesus taught about being truthful, but our society, economy and especially our political life are built upon a radical dishonesty. We know what Jesus taught about loving one's neighbor in tangible ways, but the popular attitude towards have-nots today is arrested at an "I'm All Right, Jack…." level.
We call him "Lord," but our values and societal structures are dependant upon teachings other than his. Alas! We love Jesus but we think he's impractical.
A Real Human Being
One reason many of us treat Jesus Christ as irrelevant is because we tend to forget that orthodox Christian teaching affirms both the divinity and humanity of Christ.
As I noted last week, the earliest disciples of Jesus experienced him as a real human being and, at the same time, believed that, in the presence of this real man, they also experienced the presence of the real God.
Many depictions of Jesus-in literature, poetry, art, cinema and the minds of many Christians —see him as God masquerading-as a human-being.
Orthodox Christianity emphasizes both the humanity and divinity of Christ and this is vital because a Christ who is not really human cannot show us how to live, die and survive death.
A God who just pretends to be a human being cannot expect us to pattern our lives after him. Whenever the ethical and moral demands seem too much to bear, we can always weasel out by reasoning that, after all, he's Jesus Christ and we are not.
In Hebrews 2:5-18 we are challenged to understand what it means to be truly human. Though we are by creation "lower than the angels" (2:9), God has given us powers and responsibility for the created world. Jesus was one of us, as Hebrews puts it, "he himself partook of the same nature" (2:14) and so he can be for us our "pioneer of salvation" (2:10).
A Disguised Angel?
Jesus was not sent to be among us as a disguised angel.
"For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned, but with the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect [not just appearance!], so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God…" (2:16,17). In a sense, Jesus became what we are so that we might become what he is. Jesus proved this to be possible and not out of our reach.
"For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted" (2:18). So Jesus is never irrelevant in any age. He knows what it means to be tempted to live by other standards and he demonstrated that human beings do not have to surrender to that temptation.
H.G. Wells once asked, "Is it any wonder that to this day this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?"
But Jesus Christ demonstrated once and for all that our hearts don't need to stay that small. It is not a matter of our endowment, but our choice.
Editor’s Note: Community Press, the company which has syndicated “The Bible Speaks” for so many years, is closing its doors. Therefore, this column will not appear after Wednesday, June 23, which offers the lesson for Sunday, June 27.
