Chapters 5 & 6

Chapter 5
During my senior year of college I was able to go on Westmont College’s Europe Semester with a group of 40 students and 3 professors. One of the highlights of the trip was the 3 weeks we spent in Israel. The Galilee region was my absolute favorite, mainly because it was so beautiful and rustic and maintained an old-world feel. You could imagine the scenes of the Gospels playing out: you could sit on the ruins of the synagogue in Capenaum and imagine yourself there when Jesus stood in that very place and taught, or sit on the shoreline of the lake and picture Jesus standing in a little fishing boat pushed out from the shore, teaching. Being in those places did wonders for my imagination and helped me gain a different kind of understanding of the Gospels because I had a picture in my head.

We all, I think, have pictures in our heads of what the people and places of the Bible looked like. We gather information and our imagination pieces it together and arranges it in certain ways so that we can have a picture in our minds. It’s like when you read a novel and have a whole set of images in your mind, and then the movie comes out and you have to adjust and get used to the picture that the director had in his mind. (This happened to me with Narnia…although the picture in my mind was very similar to the imagery of the movie, certain characters and scenes were different or backwards to how I had imagined it.)

When I was in Israel we went to the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the place where the angel’s visit to Mary to announce that she is going to give birth to Jesus is remembered. In the courtyard of the church there is a wall that has a number of pictures of Jesus on it, each one done by artists from different countries. There is a Hispanic Jesus, a Chinese Jesus, a black Jesus, a European Jesus, an Indian Jesus, and a middle-eastern Jesus (who, by the way looked a lot like my friend Paul, who’s Armenian). I remember being sort of bothered by the pictures because they didn’t look anything like I thought Jesus should look like. But, who says the image I have of Jesus looks anything like he really looked? And does it matter?

I do know what Jesus looked like on the inside. His teachings and actions in the Gospels paint a clear picture of a man who was full of compassion and mercy yet was as strong and resolute as any man ever could be. This is what matters to me; his integrity, his heart, his mind, his will. I find that these things are also what matter to the God when he looks at me.


Chapter 6
I am always enamored by the paradoxes of Christianity and the sort-of reversal of thinking that happens to those who really are sold out to following Jesus. The whole the-last-shall-be-first and he-who-is-the-greatest-must-be-the-servant-of-all stuff. It’s so against our nature as humans. We’re always trying to have more, be better, stronger, faster, etc, but Jesus instructs us that being poor is a spiritual advantage, that being better is a hindrance to depending on God, that individual strength often masks an inner weakness. Jesus teaches that to be “blessed” means to be fully dependent on God. As Yancey says, “Dependence, sorrow, repentance, a longing to change—these are the gates to God’s kingdom.”

Isn’t it interesting how in America we always refer to ourselves as a “blessed” nation? This is absolutely true in just about every regard: ie—freedom, liberty, justice, etc. But are we truly a blessed people spiritually? Is it possible that our political independence and the ability to pursue personal happiness have caused us to have a lack of dependence on God and an inability to confront the truly sorrowful aspects of our own thoughts and actions?

I am the first one to say that I love America and I love living in America. I have a tremendous amount of pride in our nation and heritage and believe that God has been active in our history. But our cultural advantages can cause us to be at a spiritual disadvantage. In many ways our health and wealth as Americans blinds us to our true spiritual condition.

I ask myself, “how do I become poor in spirit? Am I fully dependent on God? Do I grieve over my sin and over the evil in the world or have I become numb to it?
Do I really want to change? Do I really desire to do whatever God has for me to do?”

I’ve been to Mexico a number of times on service projects, etc. One thing that strikes me every time I go is how happy the Mexican Christians I meet are. They seem so aware of blessings and God’s provision because they are so dependent on it. They’re always looking for it. Everything in life is underlined with a “Gloria a Dios” or a “Gracias Senor.” (Glory to God and Thank You Lord). It’s a blessing to see and it reminds me of how life with God ought to be. Full of dependence on the Lord.