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Christian Faith Bishop Mar Bawai Soro Part Three: THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND After Jesus fasted and prayed in the desert for forty days and was tested by the devil, he “came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: ‘This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.’” (Mark 1:14-15) With this proclamation he began his public ministry. After Jesus died and rose from the dead, he made many appearances to his closest followers. He commanded them to meet him, once again in Galilee, before he returned to the Father. “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” he told them. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) These two events bracket his public life, beginning with fasting and prayer, and ending with his promise to be with his followers to the end. In between he traveled the countryside, teaching, preaching, healing body and soul, proclaiming a new way to live in love, making friends and enemies alike. The seminal events of Jesus’ mission - his passion, death, and resurrection - echo the way he lived his entire life, and the way he taught his followers to live. Central to that way of living is a focus on God and on others, as he taught in his great commandment of love - culminating in laying down his very life for his friends (cf. John 15:13). Along with that great commandment are the kingdom of God, repentance, belief in the gospel, and a recognition that God is bringing all to fulfillment, also central to the life of Christian believers. The word “Christian,” of course, comes from the word “Christ,” meaning “anointed.” At our baptism we are washed clean of sin and anointed as disciples of Christ, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and being baptized in the Trinity for our life on earth. In obedience to the command of Jesus, the Church goes to every people and nation, bringing the life-giving power of baptism, and teaching as Jesus taught. As the Church has grown and moved into every nation and culture, it has never ceased to identify ways to bring that teaching into the lives of people in a powerful, meaningful way. The kingdom of God, not of this world (John 18:36), nonetheless draws the world into the life of God. Christians bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ. This is central to the mission (the word means “sending”) Jesus gave to the Church. Jesus sent us to bring his life and redemption - his salvation - to everyone. What Jesus taught has filled volumes of Scripture and Church teaching for two millennia. Branches of theology have sought to explain and understand more fully what God has revealed about himself and his plan for creation - his divine plan for us. Every culture and age has struggled to believe and to live according to the gospel, our culture and age no less so. Within the many branches of theology and church teaching can be found many disciplines and approaches toward the Christian life, much of which is basic and foundational to being a follower of Jesus. Jesus prayed always, with his disciples and by himself, often for long hours in a private place where he could be alone with his Father (cf. Matthew 14:23, for example). He gave us a special prayer that is, for us Christians, the perfect prayer. Prayer is essential to the Christian life. In our prayer we praise God for his goodness, just for being God. We thank him for the many blessings he bestows on us every day of our lives. We offer our sorrow for the sins we have committed. We ask in humble petition for all that we need. A life cannot be truly Christian without prayer. One most important aspect of prayer is to gather in community to celebrate the Eucharist. At this feast of love given to the apostles on the night before he died, Jesus feeds us with his own Body and Blood. Perhaps there is no greater test of our ability to believe that which we cannot see, for the food and drink we see with our eyes are no longer bread and wine, but are really and truly the Body and Blood of the Lord. Jesus, our God and our brother, feeds us with his very self, for in the Eucharist we receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. The sacrifice of the Eucharist and the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross are one and the same. Just as Jesus laid down his life for us, he calls upon us to make a sacrificial offering of our lives, to endure faithfully and courageously the suffering that is part of life. Jesus promised that persecution, hatred, suffering, rejection - sometimes to the point of death - would belong to those who loved him. “Rejoice and be glad,” he said, “for your reward will be great in heaven.” (Matthew 5:11) In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught about the moral life, about social justice, about what is really important in Christian life. To be poor in spirit, to mourn and suffer, to be meek and humble, to hunger and thirst for what is right, to be merciful and forgiving, to have a clean heart, to be peacemakers, and, yes, to suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness - all these mark those who Jesus calls “blessed.” (cf. Matthew 5:3-17) He calls us to become the salt of the earth, the light of the world.
By leading such a
Christian life, we become signs that the time is now, that the
kingdom is here: we witness to the power of conversion by
repentance, and rejoice in the truth of the gospel. |