WARNING PREACHY
I had the privilege of attending a
conference with a man named Nadim Nassar[1]. Nadim is an Anglican Priest in London who
founded the Awareness Foundation[2], and
he works to bring peace to Syria through open honest dialogue. Syria is his homeland so he is personally
vested in trying to see peace come to the land as well as the sovereign rule of
Jesus Christ.
During one of Nadim’s talks, he
told how he met with a big group of Christian young people (I assumed college
aged) to work with them and bring them hope that despite the many years of war
that God was still at work and presently with them. He opened the session with just allowing the
young people to vent and share their raw and unfiltered frustrations about
everything. He reported that they did
too. They were angry; they felt alone,
they were frustrated that their prayers were not answered (if they were even
heard) and they felt abandoned by God and the world-wide “body of Christ” as a
whole.
Nadim began a talk to the
young people there and he reports that they wanted to know what gave him the nerve to
speak to them about their situation; a Londoner who lived in luxury by
comparison.
It was a fair question you
know? If I had been in their shoes I
would be a little offended thinking that this man from London came into the war-zone of
my life acting like a savior on his White Horse in order to try and comfort me..
But Nadim had lived through the years
of Beirut in the early 1980’s. He
explained to the young people he was not some Don Quixote who just imagined he could relate to them, but he had lived what they were now living through,
and could relate to them in a very real way.
When the youth heard this Nadim reports that he had instant credibility
in their eyes and the discussions of comfort could commence.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” John 1:14a
The Bible teaches us that God became human in the form of Jesus Christ
and lived among us to show us the way to God, He did miracles, bucked the religious system, and died an
excruciating death for us. Now, we live our lives following and immolating Him. However, at this my humanity balks.
What gives God the right to tell me
how to live? It’s not as though I have
God-like super powers. He did amazing
things, but still he is deity while I am not.
He could tell storms to hush -- and they did, he could touch a cripple --
and he walked, He was asked tricky questions -- and answered them with eternal
profoundness. Me? I’m smart enough to think of what I should
have said a day later – sometimes. The issue for me is that Jesus, in my mind, is
often just the Londoner who is coming to comfort me, but never having lived
through the very real struggles of a pure human life -- not really -- because he
had a God suit to put on as he needed.
And I do not.
But then the scriptures tell me this about Jesus.
“[Jesus]
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being
made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:6-8
And I get it, through all of the Christological
discussions about Jesus being God AND Man -- and how much of each -- and when, the
Bible presents to me a human Jesus who did not live as God of the universe but
like me as a human being. Jesus had
street clothes, not a God suit. The life
he lived he lived by human strength faith, not by super deity powers.
Jesus did not live His life as a supernatural man doing supernatural things, but rather He was totally human living completely by human style faith, and by
faith alone, He did supernatural things. Jesus Christ
didn’t live his earthly life as the God of faith, but He lived as a man with great faith in God.
As I consider the humanity of Jesus, I am encouraged to live
the life of faith, just as He did. Will I
ever do all those miraculous things that He did as a man of faith? I doubt it, but what I do know is that I can maneuver
tough times with faith as He did, I can handle temptations by faith, as He did,
and I can live my life with the knowledge of the Father’s ever-present grace, just as He did. In other words, I can live the life of faith that Jesus did.
Why? Because Jesus lived the human life I now live, but He does it with a great faith in God. In knowing this, I realize that Jesus has a great amount of credibility with me because He has actually lived through the life of faith that I am encouraged to live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Why? Because Jesus lived the human life I now live, but He does it with a great faith in God. In knowing this, I realize that Jesus has a great amount of credibility with me because He has actually lived through the life of faith that I am encouraged to live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
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