|
|
|
CHRIST THE WAY AND THE TRUTH (Part 2)
by Bishop David Horsman
The Cross of Christ gives us a vivid picture of the cost of sin, and must
move all of us to deep shame. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
We are made for fellowship with the eternal and so cannot be totally
satisfied with the superficial delights, the "lesser goods," of this world
of appearances. We are made for a reality that is unseen, but for which we
are born with a wistful hope and desire. Does this inborn desire for the
eternal betoken the reality of something beyond the flimsy delights of our
senses. Yes! If there is a thirst, there is water to quench it. Yet no
water on earth can quench this deepest of thirsts. Listen to the great
Augustine of Hippo:
"Suppose we were wanderers in a strange country and could not live happily
away from our fatherland, and that we felt wretched in our wandering and
wishing to put an end to our misery, determined to return home. . . " (On
Christian Doctrine I:4 ) Without Christ, we were strangers,"having no hope and without God in the
world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who were far off are made nigh by the
blood of Christ." (Ephesians 2:12:13) Christ is the WAY back to our
fellowship with God. But the way is the way of obedience and we must each
follow Christ and take up our own Cross. We must find in him the Way in
which we walk. How can we do that? Certainly not in our own strength. We
are saved not by OUR righteousness, not in OUR strength, but by grace- the
word means "undeserved, unmerited favor." Listen again to Saint Paul: "By
grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift
of God. Not of works lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8:9)
In order to walk in the Way of obedience, we must not only HOPE in Christ as
the WAY, we must also place our FAITH in him as the TRUTH. What does that
mean? Well "truth" comes from the Old English word "treowth" meaning
faithful, loyal. It is related to a word we used to hear in our Wedding
ceremonies before the advent of more mod language. Remember the
word,"troth." The groom would take the bride as his
"wedded wife to have and to hold, from this day forward
for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish, til death us do part according to God's holy
ordinance;
and thereto I plight thee my troth."
The bride would similarly take the groom as her
"wedded husband to have and to hold from this day forward
for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health,
to love, cherish and to obey, til death do us part, according to God's
holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth."
Much in this mutual pledge must seem quaint to those who have grown up in a
culture in which very few marriages are, "til death do us part," in which
"poorer," and "sickness," are among the easier causes for divorce, and in
which few women would even think of pledging to obey their husbands. But
here we have as St. Paul tells us a "great mystery . . . concerning Christ
and the Church." (Ephesians 5:37 )
"The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the Church:
and he is the saviour of the Body. Therefore, as the Church is subject to
Christ,
so let wives be subject to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your
wives
even as Christ also loved he Church and gave himself for it." (Eph.
5:22-23 )
So Marriage is a type of the relation between Christ and the Church and
obedience is required by the latter as a reciprocal of the love and
sacrifice of the former. This mutual love is symbolized by the giving and
pledging of troth: faithfulness, loyalty, truth. Another Scripture that we
must add to this mix is from the First Epistle to Timothy 3:15b: "the Church
of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth." Just as we must HOPE in
Christ the WAY, if we are to find our way home to a renewed relationship
with our Creator and Heavenly Father, so we must have FAITH ( i.e. put
trust) in Christ the TRUTH, if we are to be able to live the life of
obedience required by following the WAY. The ground of this truth is said
to be the Church. We will return to this idea later.
St. Peter Walking on Water (tempera on wood)
We cannot trust in ourselves, nor in the world as reported to us by our
senses, in matters of our eternal salvation. We are made for eternity not
for this brief moment in the ante-room where worldly men strut and fret
their brief hour upon the stage. And so, as Saint Paul tells us: "we walk by
faith, not by sight," (II Corinthians 5:7 ) "while we look not at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which
are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."
4:18) There is a clue in the metaphor of the Bride and Groom, and in the
idea of the Church as, "the pillar and ground of truth."
One piece is still missing. In pressing his marriage metaphor, Saint Paul
says that husbands, "ought to love their wives, as their own bodies . .
.even as the Lord the Church, for we are members of his body of his flesh
and of his bones." (Ephesians 2:28-30) This last phrase is an allusion to
the creation of woman in Genesis 2:23, where the meaning of the term "woman"
is explained as meaning "taken out of man," that is taken out of his side.
Just so was the Church taken out of Christ's side, as the soldier at the
Crucifixion, while Jesus hung on the Cross for our salvation, "with a spear
pierced his side and forthwith came there out blood and water." We will
have more to say about this water and blood later. For now, let it suffice
to say that the Church as the body of Christ is formed by Sacraments: the
water of Baptism and the Blood of the Eucharist. The sacraments are a bridge
between the invisible realities in which we place our faith and the visible
appearances in which we, as human beings, must sojourn. They are, visible
signs of invisible grace. So the Church is formed as the "household of
faith," (Gal 6:10 ) as the "pillar and ground of truth." Thus, it is not as
solitary individuals seeking a "personal" relationship with God that we make
this act of faith but as very members incorporate in the Church, The Body of
Christ, The Bride of Christ," who loved the Church and gave himself for it."
(Ephesians 5:25)
First of all, the act of faith is not so much our act as that of the Holy
God who draws us to himself. The same Jesus who proclaimed himself the
only Way to the Father, said "No man can come to me except the Father which
hath sent me draw him." (John 6:44 ) When Saint Paul
exhorts Christians to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,"
he adds immediately: "for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to
do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13) And, to return to the
marriage metaphor, the bride cannot give a pledge of faithfulness and
loyalty, "troth," or truth until the groom plights his troth to the bride.
Second, both "bride," and "body" are corporate, not individual,
expressions. We come to Jesus in and through his body, the Church, for that
is the household of faith. We are united to Christ as members of that body;
only thus can we be found, dressed in his righteousness. We can give our
troth, our pledge of truth, to him who is the truth, only as we are
incorporate in the bride, which is the Church.
The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is his new creation by water and the word.
From Heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride:
With his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.
Samuel John Stone
CHRIST THE LIFE
By faith, we give and receive pledges of troth to Christ our Bridegroom. We
can only do this in the bride, which is the Church. So, how do we become
incorporate in the Church? What is the Church? The Greek word for Church
means those "called out." Called out of this world, to live and move in the
invisible world of spirit. Remember what Jesus told the woman he met at
Jacob's well: " God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth."
(John 4: 24 ) We know what "worship in truth" means-in loyalty and
faithfulness- but what is
"in spirit" ? The Greek word for spirit also means "breath," and
"wind," " inner life," and "power." Whatever do all these things have in
common? They are all, it may be said, invisible but vital things, unseen
but very real things. The Church then is the assembly of those "called
out," from the visible world of appearance to live in the Spirit world of
reality. In Scripture, this realm of Spirit is sometimes called the
"Kingdom of God."
Jesus Christ, the Word of God was "in the beginning with God, and the Word
was God.. . . all things were made by him and without him was not anything
made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men . . .
The true light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. . . .
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. ( and we beheld his glory,
the glory of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth."
(John1:1-14) He came "preaching the Gospel [ good news ] of the Kingdom of
God , and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand!"
(Mark1:14-15) He then called-out the first disciples. He saw Peter and
Andrew "casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said
unto them, come ye after me and I will make you to become fishers of men.
And straightway they forsook their nets and followed him." (Mark 1:16-18)
Going a little farther, he called James and John, also fishermen. A little
later he called Matthew, a tax collector, and so on til he had chosen
twelve, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. These men followed him
through his ministry: they saw him heal the sick and pronounce sins
forgiven, and finally eleven of them saw him die on the cruel cross.
Three days after his death and burial, Jesus rose from the dead and
appeared to the disciples and greeted them, saying, "Peace be unto you, as
my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this he
breathed on them and saith unto them: receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose
soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye
retain, they are retained." (John 20:21 ) Thus these disciples (learners,
followers ) became APOSTLES, (sent-ones ). He spent forty day with them,
during which he"opened their understanding that they might understand the
Scriptures," during which he showed them " that all things must be fulfilled
which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms
concerning," him.
(John 24:44-45) Did I not tell you, I am "the Resurrection and the Life"?
(John 11:26) Did I not say, "I am the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE'? (John
14: 6) And when this instruction was completed he took them to a mountain
and said: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye
therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world." (Matthew 28:16-20) He then sent them back to Jerusalem,
with orders to tarry there, "until ye be endued with power from on high."
(Luke 24:49) "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come
upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he
had spoken these things while they beheld, he was taken up: and a
cloud received him out of their sight." (Acts 1:8-9)
In another ten days, on the festival of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost did indeed
descend on them ( Acts 2 ) and the Church was fully born. When men turned to
the Apostles and asked what they must do to be saved, they were told:
"repent and be baptized." Baptized? What is that?
What is the significance of this baptism? Why was it commanded by Christ
as one of his last orders to these he sent, "as my father hath sent me,"?
Why did the Apostles carry out this order unfailingly? What's so important
about baptism? Let us look back at a conversation between Jesus and a
Synagogue Ruler named Nicodemus. "Except a man be born again," Jesus tells
Nicodemus, " he can not see the Kingdom of God."
"How can a man be born when he is old?" asks Nicodemus, "Can he enter the
second time into his mother's womb and be born?"
It is easy to imagine our Lord smiling here. For the Greek word translated
"again," in this verse is a double entendre : it means both "again" and
"from above."
"Jesus answered, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of
WATER and of the SPIRIT, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." (John
3:1-5) " Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that
Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by Water and Blood." says the
Beloved Disciple. (I John 5: 4-6 ) This expression,"Water and Blood," is
the same we met earlier in the scene where the soldier pierced Christ's
side and out of it came "water and blood." This was what Saint Paul meant
when he spoke of the "mystery of Christ and the Church," and explained the
nature of this mystery by an allusion to the creation of woman, "taken from
man's side." The Church then is created from Christ's side in this mystery
of water and blood.
Rock of ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee,
Let the water and the blood from thy side a healing flood
Be of sin the double cure, cleanse me from its guild and power.
Should my tears for ever flow, should my zeal no languor know,
All for sin could not atone: thou must save and thou alone;
In my hand no price I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.
Augustus Montague Toplady
|
