John the baptizer’s words to the soldiers, tax collectors and poor — who came and asked him what they should do to live in the right relationship with God — touches my heart (Luke 3). No, he doesn’t offer them some quick escape-route to heaven. Neither does he offer them a safe, bomb-shelter to protect from life’s assaults. On the contrary. John brought heaven down to earth by telling the poor that he who has two sets of clothing should give one away to people who have less than him. Soldiers needed to learn to be happy with their pay, and tax collectors needed to stop making unfair profits.
John doesn’t teach people that suffer to passively sit and wait for help from elsewhere. Even the poorest has something to share. It’s a good biblical principle that we often overlook. Just ask the poor widow who gives her last couple of cents to God in Luke 21. That’s faith. At that very moment she became the latest spiritual millionaire. Our faith shines the brightest through what we give away. Even the poorest among us can share something of themselves with others.
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.” – Mark 1:14-15 The Message (emphasis mine)
Okay, so here, in the first instruction Jesus gives in the Gospel according to Mark, we hear that we need to believe the Message. ‘Believe’ is a verb, just like ‘know’ is a verb. The two are very different verbs… Many people today think of believing in much the same way as knowing. They think you believe something if you are certain of it, with or without any concrete proof or deep understanding. This isn’t wrong. It’s one of the nuances of faith or belief. However, it leaves little room for healthy doubt. We need to wrestle with what we believe…
We have glimpses of the Message of Jesus. We hear stories and parables, accounts of miracles, and questions rather than answers. Perfect stuff for faith. Not so for knowledge. One of the most important things we need to do is to wrestle with this information, to question it, to doubt it, and misunderstand it on our way to some deeper understanding. That’s faith or belief, and a more complete picture of what it truly means to believe. If you just know something, no wrestling or questioning is required.
Listen to what Pete Rollins had to say about this in one of his video teachings.
One of my favorite quotes is that of Ernst Kaesemann, a well-known German theologian of the previous century. Just listen to what he writes as he’s thinking about Jesus: “People and institutions do not like to be kept continually on the alert, and they have constantly devised screens to protect themselves from too much heat. In fact, they have even managed to reduce Jesus’ red-hot message, which promised to kindle a fire throughout the world, to room temperature.”
What comes to mind as you read these words? Does it shock you and stop you in your tracks? I sincerely hope so. Isn’t it true that we have radically “reduced the heat” of Jesus and his message? Why? Well, in order to have Him fit in neatly into our small, predictable little worlds. We have tried to change Jesus into our image instead of allowing Him to change us into his image. We have tried to bring Him under control instead of Him bringing us under control and shaping us as He thinks fit. The result is that many of us are stuck with a safe and uninspiring Jesus that we encounter every now and again in church around a few moral lessons that isn’t exactly threatening or transforming. Outside of that, we just carry on with our lives as usual.
