Under pressure

 

One of my favorite passages from the bible is in John 1, where John the apostle is talking about John the baptizer.  He says, “He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him men might believe.  He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.” I like this because for me it kind of takes the pressure off, what I mean is that it reminds me that I myself am not the light, I am not what brings men to repentance, I am not the one who holds them to account, and I am most definitely not the one who is their savior.  I am just a witness; just someone who is so enthralled by the one that is those things that I talk about Him often. 

Its not that I don’t need to be holy or work towards righteousness, but it does mean I can be human and I can be all right knowing that I am human.  That’s one of the great things about the bible and why I like reading it so much.  It is full of stories of people who were used by God but were not perfect in their pursuit of holiness, its full of stories about people who weren’t willing, or educated, or wealthy but all people who despite themselves were used to testify about God.  Like in the book of Acts where we see Peter giving into serious social pressure and excluding the non-Jewish from worship services.  Or where Paul and Barnabass separate thus facilitating one of the first church splits.

I think one of the dangerous things about the system we have built in American Christianity is that we place religious leaders on a pedestal and expect of them to be super holy and super righteous, and because we have placed them on such a high pedestal when they fall they rarely recover.  Which is sad not just because we lose gifted men and women, but because we so shame the grace of God that is the reason we can pursue holiness at all. 

As a community of Christ it is our privileged and responsibility to express grace in our acceptance of one another and of those that have fallen.  In Romans Paul says that we should be characterized by unity, and that unity will only be established when we accept one another like Christ accepted us.  And if you look at how Christ accepted us it wasn’t in our holiness or our righteousness, but it was in our everything that isn’t pretty or holy.  As Romans continues to say Christ accepted us while we were still against Him, while we were still sinners, and while we truly did not deserve acceptance. 

That’s the beauty of the Gospel, love and reconciliation.  That those (being all of us) who couldn’t have relationship with God and could not be apart of His family because of this huge wall (known as sin) that was separating us from Him can now know Him and be loved by Him because the wall is gone, destroyed by the death of Jesus. 

If Christ can love and accept us while we were enemies of God, then I think we can love and accept one another.