In the world every minute: 100 people die and of them 30 are Christians; 250 people are born and of them 70 are born to Christians. In any of those minutes Jesus may appear to call an end to the proceedings of the people on this earth. How many people will greet him as a [...]
In the world every minute: 100 people die and of them 30 are Christians; 250 people are born and of them 70 are born to Christians. In any of those minutes Jesus may appear to call an end to the proceedings of the people on this earth. How many people will greet him as a brother, as family? You tell me… Probably only the orphans and people who had nothing in this world and so put all their hopes into the minute when Jesus would appear… Jesus would be their brother, their family, since on this earth they had none. Many of us live Christian, and die Christian… how many of us live orphaned, alone, lost in this world, and die in the hope of finally being part of a family… of finally being loved, cared for, of belonging to a family… Jesus’ family which will come into fruition fully any minute now… is that the family we hope for?
What of the 70 other people who die every minute are they any less welcome to hope for Jesus? What of the other 180 babies born every minute, because they don’t know about Jesus are they not welcome? Are the 30 and the 70 or the 70 and the 180 really so different? I don’t think they are. There is 250 born every minute and 100 die every minute and every minute may mean the appearance of Jesus and the final birth and the final death. The statistics will change to 0 born and 0 die… Who will greet Jesus as a brother… as the family they have longed for… anyone may. Can we tell who those will be that will greet Jesus that way? I think it is those who long for him now… who hope for his return this minute! “Please come now Jesus, please come now!” “Call an end to the statistics… stop the blood flowing… cease the pain… end the grief” “Take me to my new home Jesus, forever you are my brother” “This minute I need you, this minute your love is all I desire.” “Take us all home Jesus, take home your family” “Pluck us from where we are this minute, pull us away from this endless cycle we have created for ourselves” “Save us, and rescue us, we are surrounded by what we have done to ourselves” Be our saviour, hold us because we can’t help ourselves” “Please come this minute Jesus, we long for you.”
Popularity: 100% [?]
30 in 100? 70 in 250? Very unlikely. Those statistics are meaningless if anybody cared to look at them more closely. The ‘Christian’ label applies generally at a cultural level in some countries, but there is often little evidence of any appreciation as to what ‘Christian’ might mean apart from having seen the inside of a church at some point in ones life.
Jesus said “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:14). I think we we get a better idea of how many follow the way when we look at the number of Christians in cutures where there ther is no Christian culture to speak of, and where bing a christian results in significant hardship. Numbers like 1% and 2% often come up in those contexts. Even in australia, more conservative figures put numbers at between 3% and 8%.. if you extract the significant cultural pull of church culture (The Baptists, for example, experience more growth through procreation than conversion) we are probably looking at a similar proportion of the population.
Few of us seek God sincerely to risk everything we have and everything we are for him. Few of us choose to follow the narrow winding path.
The question is: when there is nobody around the corner waiting to set us on fire for our faith, to destroy our homes, to take our children, how do we really know where we stand?
None of us choose such a path because it is not possible (John 3:1-21).
In the time of Jesus and the disciples Judaism was commonplace… the trust in time-tested and hard worn principles and rules that a person would grow up practicing and so ensure a well balanced life that pleased God.
Christians introduced the new guiding rule of “by faith” which at the time meant that all previous reliable practices and habits were superseded and broken away from, giving these followers of Jesus the authority and license to please God in any way they saw fit, no matter how different from the accepted norm.
Nowadays I don’t think the language of ‘by faith’ is adequate as a guiding principle for Christians since liberalism and belief are actually now the norm. Perhaps we could borrow another of the disciples’ words ‘by grace’ to better communicate the uniqueness of the Christian message in todays world.
‘by grace’ means that all we know, all we own, all we feel, even all we believe has been superseded ‘by grace’. To recognise in today’s church and society those who are Christian is to look for those who hold on to nothing, who speak of nothing, who believe nothing, who are nothing. To recognise your brother you look for him who waits for God to reveal his Son. You look for a person who hopes for Jesus this minute, who is tired, bored, sick, angry, frustrated, depressed at the waiting… Jesus’ appearance can only ever take one minute too long.
‘by grace’ are those who are done with everything! God knows those who are his!