A Christian is confronted by many variants of being a Christian - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Methodist.... S/he is also faced with people belonging to other religions or no religion, questioning him/her as to what his/her Christianity means, and how what s/he professes tallies with human reason and logic.
To be a Christian in very simple and straight terms is to be a 'disciple' of Christ. Christ's bid to his disciple 'Come, follow me' is accepted by the disciple.
He further bids: Come and see. This is symbolic of christian way - the first disciples ask him: 'where do you stay' and this was his response. And they went and stayed with him.
Jesus bids us to come and see where he 'stays' and 'stay with him'!
This staying with him - is to live in the spirit of Jesus, at the level at which he lives, he lived - with God. In union with God - the source of all good, to the point of feeling one with God, empowered to make the bold statement of 'I and the Father are one', or even, those who see me, see the Father.
Where he lives - is also the human communities of peaceful communion, fellowships of sharing, caring and bearing.
The appellation, Father (or Mother), is the mode of Jesus' God-realization. A christian is challenged and invited to such an experience or realisation.
I listened to the 'logical' presentation of Dr Zakeer Naik 'proving' from the Bible that Jesus was not 'crucified' but only 'crucificted' (fiction), and from his 14-point logical rebuttal of Christian faith on Jesus' resurrection, the question of original sin and link to the salvation through Jesus' death as an expiation of sins. All the while, showing great respect to Jesus Christ PUBH! And quoting from the Bible left and right!
I feel a Christian doesn't have to go for a dogmatic debate to logically prove the dogmas of faith. For the dogmas, I feel, are only secondary, what is primary, is to follow Jesus who lived a life of union with God in harmony with the god-filled nature (with hardly any malice in it, unlike the humans), and compassionate fellowship with fellow beings.
Credo! He has come to free us from the burden of sin - that is how he lived, in his compassionate communion with God, fellow humans and nature, he showed how empowering it is to live thus, and be free from sin - read, malice. I set aside the subtle questions of inheriting original sin. Why should the human predicament of propensity to evil, illness, ill will have to be explained with that story? That is better understood as the human aspiration to be in a state of perfect union - it should be more of a future possibility, a goal, than a lost paradise.
It is a conscious choice for the good permeating the world - ishavasyamidam sarvam, yat kincha jagtyam jagat! Tena tyaktena bhunjitha - Hence, it is important to live on this planet consuming with a spirit of sharing (sacrifice) with and sparing for others. And thus, he has shown a path of remission of sins - by always seeking good, and being in union with the source of all goodness, experiencing the same as his beloved father!
Credo! He is indeed the way - and living this way as he walked, hundreds of thousands found joy, and power to heal - physically and mentally. And showed how, in their turn, they can be sons and daughters of that unfathomable good, whom Jesus experienced as the father.
I am least interested in the logic of divine sonship, virgin birth, trinitarian god, miraculous resurrection, the ascension of Jesus, the assumption of blessed virgin Mary etc., etc. I don't deny them. But my task as a Christian, I trust, is not to know or learn these dogmas, let alone establish them, but to live as Jesus lived, if warranted, suffer and die as he did, for the sake of goodness, for the well-being of others! But credo!
Thus, my mission is to show that this way is a guaranteed path to peace and joy - not by the logic of arguments, but by the logic of experience. Yes, when I live thus it is transforming - me and the world around me - into a joyous, glorious, resplendent life, in spite of 'having the tribulations of the world', for he has overcome them in a very human fashion (Jn 16:33).
Hence I accept what Jesus told to Peter: 'what is it for you if he were to remain till I returned? You, follow me!' (Jn 21:22). In this context, his reprimanding of the disciple Martha becomes palatable to me: You are bothered about many things, but only one thing is necessary, and Mary has chosen that (Lk 10:42). To choose the feet of Jesus is not merely to sit beside him and massage his feet (padaseva), but rather to follow where his feet took him - to all sorts of goodness.
I am consoled and comforted by the definition Jesus gave to his close relatives (mother, brother and sister): 'whoever does the will of my father in heaven' (Mtt 12:48-50). Naturally so for the one who looked at his food as 'fulfilling the will of him who sent me and accomplishing his work' (Jn 4:34).
Here the tricky issue is about knowing the will of the father/mother/the one who sends me - each individual gets convinced and decides that s/he has to be led by one's convictions. Will that be equivalent to the will of God? I feel the test of being in alignment with the will of God, could be to check whether my action (thought, word and deed) leads to good. Does it maintain the good? Does it add to the good? Does it promote well-being?
Christian call appears somewhat like the case of Light Brigade:
Theirs is but to do and die. (Light Brigade, Tennyson).
This reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the protestant theologian (read, saint) who famously said, 'When Christ calls a person, he bids him come and die (Cost of Discipleship, 1951 - Nachfolge 1937)', it is a very blunt and hard way of describing Christ following with no sugar-coating! Would that inspire people today? To die for someone, to die for a cause?
This is a challenging life worth living always. It is to establish God's reign of justice, peace and joy in the spirit of God (Rom 14:17), which also means there is food for every hungry person and clean water for all to drink. It is about good governance today, it is about SDG 16 today - justice, peace and strong institutions.
I felt humbled by the way in which Dr Zakeer was quoting Bible, whereas I would not be able to do anything of that sort. I feel I should be able to. We should have worked towards learning the Bible much deeper. However, that need not make me any the less a christian.
I should still be able to walk on the waters, like those uneducated Christians of the solitary island did - eagerly seeking to learn from the 'holy bishop' who was returning by the ship already moving away from the island in his ship, the fundamentals of Christian prayer, as they had only the very rudimentary prayer known to them 'we are three, you are three, have mercy on us'. But the bishop was wise enough to instruct them that they didn't need any more prayers than this one!
Thought provoking in-depth article which is the outcome of proper research and the author’s expertise. The natural flow of language and the handling of sophisticated issues with ease are commendable 🙏
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