Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 28, 13 March 1942, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the Whakata

PLAYING SAFE WITH JESUS

When the mob dragged Jesus away for his mock trial Peter "followed him afar oil." He kept at a safe distance from Jesus, lest lie be regarded more than an interested spectator. Doubtless, it was common sense for Peter to take his precaution. It would have been foolish, while the anger of the mob was at white heat, to let it be known that he was a bosom friend and confidant of the accuscd. Professed followers of Jesus arc still playing safe after the same Petrine fashion. We keep Jesus at a safe distance away. W T e look from afar at his. simple yet trenchant words and say, "Nothing comparable to them in all the annals of literature! Lovleir than anything to be found in all religious Avritings!" We glance at the records of his deeds and exclaim, "What a group of inspiring scenes! No wonder the master artists have vied with each other in the atteftipt to re-action his moods and depict the forceful beauty and loveliness of his deeds! Let us hang their masterpieces in conspicuous places, display the cross on all public buildings, and keep the New Testament —that Golden Book—in a prominent place in our homes. Let's eulogise him in sermon and in song. Yea, 'bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all.' " Then someone points out to us the very obvious fact that the life of Jesus, glossed over by our excessive adulation, has implications that are revolutionary. His gospel lays upon those who profess it terrible responsibilities. His utterances have economic bearings of wide import; they engage our social customs and conventions in a hand to hand conflict for mastery; they challenge our complacent conventions and smug opinions. If Ave really followed him many of our accepted practices Avould have to be overturned. When Jesus is brought down close to where avc 1 ive, ayc are prone to cry with one accord, "Don't drag that set of beautiful traditions. Ave have woven around Jesus into the market place! him in his gilded frame, in his far-away spiritual realm. It gets religion all mixed up with sordid business and rotten politics and reA'olutionary social ideas and impractical schemes for the betterment of the Avorld. LeaA'e us our Christianity as a beautiful dream. We A\*i 11 admire Jesus but at a distance. Don't ask us to bring him j into too intimate touch Ayith life; it spoils the picture." Most of us had far and awav rather hear a sermon in praise of Christ than to be challenged to incarnate his spirit of individual and corporate life. Let someone sound a note of praise for Christ and he Is said to be sound in the faith. Let someone preach that the gospel 4 of Jesus ought to rid business of its selfishness, kill the Avar system, and bring justice in social dealings, and immediately the cry arises. "That man's a Bolshevik, a dangerous, socialistic radical." Thus it comes nbout that some of the great prophets of our day, men 'and Avomen of unquestioned devotion to Christ,

Ie Ministers' Association)

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

lire blacklisted as, arch heretics. They have committed the great heresy, J'or which there is 110 forgiveness, of dragging Christ down from his heavenly throne and putting him to work at redeeming the world. There is another similar attitude that faces around the other way : "We will follow Jesus but let's not get too close to him." This is the attitude: "We will give allegiance to him and to his beautiful Avords, but not to the extent of applying them literally. Jesus was an Oriental, you see. He talked in the exaggerated terms common to the East. You' must, therefore, make due allowance for his highly-coloured expressions." So wc come to agree with the attempts of many kinds that are made to tone down, shade off, and limit what otherwise would be rather startling utterances. We welcome those scholars who come to our rescue with their theories of "interim ethics," "oriental mysticism," "impractical visions." Wc would pass resolutions in Christ's favour but we expect them to be treated like the resolutions of mass meetings, and planks in political platforms, and tasks assigned to committees—bury them on the records, do nothing about them; it isn't expected that Christ be taken in dead earnest. To do so would lead us into so many paths that it is best i 0 keep at a safe distance on the main highway. The outcome is one of the tragedies of Christianity: men and women giving lip service to their Master, j but making no serious effort to live his gospel, yea, frankly, openly avowing that it isn't expected that we shall do so. Hence, our Christianity is a limpid, limping thing, which others do not take seriously. They do not believe that we believe Christ is more than a myth, or that his religion is more than a fancy or fairy story, or that we Christians are doing little more than amusing or deceiving ourselves by playing an interesting hut harmless game. Christianity is going to stand or fall on whether there is real dynamic in Christ for the redemption of human nature and human society. The issue is whether there is in Christ a source of power for magnificent, self-forgetful, self-sacrificial, brotherly living; whether he can generate energy to make us honest and pure and clean and kind and loving and just. What is the cross of but a perpetual reminder that it is daily costing God to endeavour to redeem his children? Is the cross of Christ merely to be carved out of wood as decorations for our churches, or to be wrought into the lives of his followers who themselves shall become redemptive social forces? To us so prone to; modify its meaning, there comes the clear call of the Christ—"Follow me." It is i not a call to follow custom or convention or habit or party, but to foliow Christ; not a call to walk in the popular way, but in the Christ way—though its earthly end be a cross! Heed the call. In the counting room, in the market house, in the home, in legislative halls, at the polls—"Follow Me."