But what has Jesus really brought, then, if he has not brought world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God!
from Jesus of Nazareth, by Pope Benedict XVI
What is your reaction to this quote? If you disagree, what is it that you react to? If you agree, what are the implications for your own life?
In some unfathomable way Jesus makes a bridge for us to meet God the Father. The incarnation was a brilliant plan.
Thanks, Thainamu. I agree. Immanuel, God with Us, is the name of Jesus that I ponder the most.
I meant to reply to this last night, but time gets away.
On a first read, I was non-committal about the phrase, but the last 4 words have a profound effect on how I feel about it. You know, “by Pope Benedict XVI.”
A Christian is a child of the living God, regardless of their stripe, but an organization cannot be Christian regardless of its constitution. I don’t know that many people think about that distinction, nor that many people would agree with me on it. The Catholic organization is constitutionally bound to argue against that distinction with all their considerable might, though. I thank the Lord for Catholic Christians, but I pray they might be delivered from that organization.
When the pope makes a statement like that, it seems disingenuous to me. Dude! You declare that you sit as the Earthly head of the Earthly representative of Christ, the church. If Christ has failed to bring something, it’s because you have failed to bring it, but you pin it all on Him. And you failed because you thought it could be brought with money, vestments, and swords. You’ve tried every Earthly way imaginable to bring world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world, and arguably you’ve worked the opposite of their intention. And the smaller the scale on which you measure, the more devastation you find. The world doesn’t look better at a geopolitical level, but it looks stunningly worse at a family level.
I recently reread the story of Bruchko. Here is a missionary who spent years integrating himself into the lives of people before letting them find Christ for themselves. It was the anti-catholic method, and it resulted in everything the pope says Christ failed to bring.
Christ successfully brings us every one of those things, at a local level. The pope just sits too high in his tower to see it.
And Christ didn’t bring us God, He AM God and gave Himself to us.
Still, if Charles Spurgeon had said the same words, I’d have swallowed them whole (even if I like to imagine I wouldn’t have eaten it up like candy.)
Codepoke, you say that Christ brings us peace, universal prosperity, and a better world at the local level. I know there’s some truth in that, depending on how you choose your definitions, but on the whole, I would disagree. Christ came not to bring peace, but a sword; He pronounces blessings on the poor and woe to the rich; His kingdom is not of this world. But while Christ does not bring those things (or at least does not bring primarily those things, and does not always bring those things), He does bring God; He does bring Himself. And the bringing of God is infinitely greater than the bringing of all else. Furthermore, those other things – peace, sword, prosperity, poverty, all the good and bad of this world – exist for the sake of God’s coming to us, and our coming to God.
Thanks, Codepoke and Phil for your thoughts on this. I’ve been out all day, and appreciate and look forward to dialoguing more with you on this when I have more than a few seconds. You’ve both given me some good things to think about.
Pardon the interruption but if it was not Christ who brought peace, who then, because Christ left peace with us. (John 14:27) It was God’s peace, not the world’s, and unless we refuse what He left for us, we will have peace. Simply because He promised…
How many perspectives is this now? And they all have merit and value. Very cool.
Praise the Lord.
I agree that Christ brought/left peace with us. And that peace certainly makes a difference in the world we live in. But not always in the way or to the degree we want from the angle we want it from. It truly is God’s peace, not the world’s, and is often not in the forms we most want it. And that not only disappoints the world and causes them to point accusing fingers at Christ followers, but I believe that as Christ followers we are also often disappointed that God doesn’t meet our expections or “reward” our efforts by pouring out the kind of peace WE want, instead of the kind He promised.
I have found his peace to be acutely real and powerful and life changing in the middle of some of the most unpeaceful and distressing of circumstances. And I have been challenged to hear stories of the differences the peace of God made in the lives of people like Corrie Ten Boom and believers in China and Rwanda, suffering atrocities and unpeaceful scenarios beyond my comprehension.
I also wanted to add, though, that my certainty that the peace Christ promised and brought will often look very different from what we expect or want, is not mutually exclusive, Codepoke, to your concerns with how churches and organizations which proclaim the name of Christ act in ways that either ignore things which believers are to care about, or actively participate in exploitation and injustice, cloaked and justified in spiritual terms. Wow, that’s a long sentence. I hope it makes sense.
Because churches do what they do under the name of Christ, I think there has often been less accountability (how can they be wrong, because look what they stand for), when in reality they should be more accountable, because of what they stand for and who they represent to the rest of the world. I think this is what I hear you reacting to, Codepoke, and I don’t think I disagree with you at the heart of this, even if we do understand differently some of the specific changes following Jesus brings and how they should look and when.
I think your challenge and questions to the Pope, which you wrote here, are important and valid to be asking, not only of the Pope and the Catholic church, but also of other churches, denominations and missions organizations, both on the local level and grander denominational levels. The answers may not be as straightforward or simple as the questions suggest, but I think the questions need to be asked and the challenges given, because they bring to light very real concerns that have been easier to ignore. Thank you for being quick and honest in articulating them.
Thank you again, all of you, for continuing to challenge me and some of my “status quo” beliefs. Each one of your thoughts has been very helpful to me in your perspectives and understandings.
In your post #8, eclexia, you expressed my thought better than I did. Thank you. Another Scripture is Paul letter’s to the Galatians 5:22-26. That is the only place I can think of where our expectations fall short of reality, the fruit of the Spirit.
Hey, I’m under the weather, out of town, and in need of sleep, so I have not had the time to read your other posts. They look rich and brave, and I will look forward to them. I just wanted to quickly say this, since in my haste I forgot to earlier,
> I think your challenge and questions to the Pope, which you wrote here, are important and valid to be asking, not only of the Pope and the Catholic church, but also of other churches, denominations and missions organizations, both on the local level and grander denominational levels.
Amen. If I did it right, I expressed displeasure with the actions of the Catholic church, not the organization itself nor its people, and disagree with each denomination to the degree they do the same things. I do plainly believe the Catholics are leading the field in solving the world’s problems by outward political activity, but the reformers did not fall far from the apple tree on this one.