There exists a modern phenomenon in the Christian world, a spiraling slope of sorts that the masses seem to have slipped upon. I say modern, yet it comes about anew with each generation that hears the Gospel of Christ, and has certainly prevailed throughout history. While the Church seeks to preach the living Christ to a world dead in sin and searching for answers to life’s fundamental struggles, it seems that the Christ that becomes accepted is not living at all. Jesus is brought into the lives of thousands and thousands who understand him, even believe in him, but fail to grasp the truth of his resurrection. For although it will always be a leap of faith for man to assent to the dying and rising of Jesus, if man is to assent, he must do so to both the dying and the rising of Christ. The implications of the risen Christ far supercede what the modern Christian will allow. One cannot assent merely to the dying Christ, for this type of Christianity, which is the phenomena that I speak of, leads man down a path paved with the cement of hopelessness. The hardening of the path beneath him, the entrapping of his very legs in the grounds of lukewarm pavement stifles the modern man. With every step he takes he can reassure himself that the savior who lived long ago is real, but the man taking these recoiled steps is doomed to die. He is without life. He is without abundant life. He becomes the walking dead man. And is he any different than the man who walks beside him who does not believe? That man too can smile, and cry. He can love and feel pain. So why should an unbeliever believe in a God who can smile and cry and love and feel pain, when this believer walking with him doesn’t know such a God?
The truth must be confessed, that not only did Christ smile, and cry, and love, and feel pain, but Christ has resurrected into glory and in his living state he has not abandoned man but gives him hope, a hope that intersects the moment in which we find ourselves. We can know who Christ is not only by his life on earth, but also by his life in glory. It would be absurd to say that the Christ who promised us life abundant would be able to provide such a gift merely through the record of his earthly life. Though this record, which we find in the Bible, is the very breath of God and our source of nourishment for the Christian endeavor, we cannot deny that these texts undoubtedly speaks of a God who desires to live and interact with man, indeed a God who promised to send us his Spirit to guide us into all truth. God is hearing man’s prayer and is continually paving his way with hope. But the believer who cannot understand this living God cannot receive his living gift. That is why our legs seem permanently implanted in the Christian sidewalk, and why after years of self-taught repetition in the pews we lose hope - and Christianity becomes a characteristic, or even a trendy motif for our otherwise unreligious lives.
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