Dear Luke,
You have managed to pack several
years’ worth of deep conversations into one letter! You bring up talk of judgment, a question the
church has wrestled with for ages, and by the end you’re discussing the
importance of integrating faith and life, the importance of which we see so
often in Jesus’ calls to discipleship.
If I could adequately answer your questions, the world would no longer
have any writing material!
To be blunt, I believe that our
faith in Christ is the basis for judgment.
I don’t know when or how or many of the other answers as to judgment,
but I plan on clinging to Christ for all I’m worth when my time comes. Jesus spoke about it often, and I don’t know
if I have a good picture of what it will be like based on all the things I’ve
learned, but the one thing I’m certain of is that without Christ, I don’t stand
a chance at heaven. I believe that the
gift of Jesus Christ is the only thing that prevents me from suffering the same
fate as the rich man in Jesus’ parable.
I don’t think that feeding Lazarus would have earned the man a trip to
be with Abraham, but a saving faith in Jesus would probably have led him to
look at the man differently. Does that
make sense? He couldn’t have earned his
salvation through his actions, but his actions would have changed if an
authentic faith had taken hold of his heart.
I hope that answers your
question. I don’t think perfection is
required. If it was, we’d all be
hopeless—you can see that for yourself in these letters! Jesus spreads his love on plenty of people
with sinful pasts, and he acknowledges, as you said, the reality of our
mistakes and our sins. We’re not going
to be perfect—our faith simply needs to be lodged in him, and in him alone. If we place our faith in ourselves to be good
enough and follow every letter of the law, I think we’ll find disappointment at
the end of the road.
Our lives, then, need to reflect
our faith. We live a life that proclaims
that Christ is within us, rather than living in such a way that will make God
love us more. Our faith should take hold
and change the way we do everything! I
certainly wouldn’t fault Jesus for expecting this. I’m sure the church would survive if
Christians stopped integrating their faith with their lives, but I don’t know
how effective or faithful it would be in its witness. Why would people want to join the church if
the faith we proclaimed didn’t seem to matter in anything we did? Of course, some people join and seem to be
only focused on making sure they don’t share the fate of the rich man
illustrated in the parable. Is this true
faith? I don’t know, Luke, and I leave
that answer to Jesus!
I have discovered a wonderful
little story about Jesus meeting ten lepers while he was headed to
Jerusalem. In some little village Jesus
was approached by ten lepers crying out for Jesus to have mercy on them. While most polite citizens would have kept
their distance or avoided the lepers all together, Jesus instead gives them the
command to go to the priests and show themselves. Completely trusting in Jesus, they headed in
that very direction, making the astonishing discovery on their way that they
were healed! I like to picture them
screaming for joy in the middle of an alley, being shrouded in darkness and
running into the light, dancing with more vigor than one would think
possible. They must have stared at their
skin over and over again, wondering if this was all just a dream or if Jesus
had indeed given them their lives back.
One of these ten then did what
would seem natural. Perhaps the true
surprise of the story is that the other nine chose not to emulate this
one. This man turned back and returned
to Jesus, falling at his feet with thanks on his tongue as he praised God. Jesus must have been thrilled at the sight of
this man, restored to life, praising God.
Jesus does ask the man one
question. I think he knows the answer
but wants to hear what the man has to say.
He asks him if there were not ten of them crying out for healing. I doubt that he was expecting an answer—I
believe he asks the question for the benefit of the disciples and whoever else
might have been around, reminding them of how important it is to thank God for
all the gifts we are given. Jesus asks
why none of them returned to praise God except for this one, who was a
foreigner! Jesus is lifting up the
importance of proper faith over proper heritage, again focusing on the here and
the now.
Jesus has the man stand, and with
pleasure in his voice he commands the man to go on with life, secure in the knowledge
that he was healed by his faith.
Again, to return to our previous
conversation, I don’t believe the strength or size of his faith heals him—I
think the object of his faith heals him.
Though he may have had small faith, it was in the right person, and that
faith in Christ enables him to do great things.
This is a wonderful story,
Luke. I love the emphasis it puts on
giving thanks, on praising God. I hope
that my life is an illustration of how wonderful it can be to praise God with
one’s whole heart. I don’t claim to be
perfect, but I am hopeful that I will ferret out all the things in my life that
prevent me from praising God and giving thanks for all he has given me.
Sincerely,
Theophilus
No comments:
Post a Comment