On
our Chaplaincy Facebook site
we've been talking about the recent discovery of a Coptic
manuscript
that contains the sentence, "Jesus said, 'My wife....'".
All
the Da
Vinci Code
/ Mary Magdalene conspiracy theory chatter has been
reignited!
As
it happens, the Manuscript is looking increasingly likely
to be a
forgery (see Mark Goodacre's blog
for scholarly opinion). That aside - how human do we want Jesus to
be?
Christians speak of Jesus as God incarnate, God in human
form. What does this mean?
One thing it doesn't
mean is that Jesus is simply an all-powerful God wearing a
human-suit.
It is not
the
case that if you scratched him you'd find God
"underneath".
No
- he is fully
human. After
all, the Letter to the Hebrews even speaks of Jesus having
to "learn"
things.
To speak of God Incarnate, means to speak of Jesus as
God translated
into human form.
Take an English sentence, translate it into
French. There is no English left, only French, and yet the
meaning
remains. A mystery...
For me, Jesus is what God looks like
when translated into a human life. Gone is the
transcendence, all you
can see is immanence - a glorious human
life
containing fear, confusion, puzzlement, joy, excitement
and
hope.
And those are the emotions I currently see around me in
the new and returning faces of students and staff.
So this is good
news, for Jesus is therefore "God-on-our-side", sharing
our
stuff and doing something amazing in it.
"For we do not
have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses,
but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we
are, yet
without sin.
Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with
boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to
help in time
of need." (Hebrews 4:15-16).
(Chaplaincy "Thought for the week")
No comments:
Post a Comment