Personal thinking
We live in a world where people are judged for what they have and what they look like, where the rich seem to live in despicable opulence while the poor die of hunger, where technology has shrunk the world to a village but the minds of the people are farther than they may ever have been. In this paradoxical world that we find ourselves in, what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?
Jesus was born in Israel at a time when its biggest need seemed to be obtaining freedom from the Romans. Indeed, that was a time when Israel was regularly within the clutches of the different powerful nations around it. Therefore, what Israelites had expected from the Messiah was a king who would lead them to freedom and national glory. But as it turned out, being a king was the last of Jesus’ objectives. The Pharisees and the teachers of law may have sided with Jesus and helped his cause if Jesus had agreed to lead the country to war and eventually to freedom against the Romans. (“Mere Christianity”, 1)
Instead the Kingdom that Jesus taught the people about was a radically different one from what the Jews had in mind. He taught of a Kingdom where the greatest are the servants, the slaves and the children. He did not want to be famous and this was something even the people closest to him, his family and his disciples could not understand. He was expected to lead a revolution against the Romans, but he taught his followers to love their enemies and to pray for those who hated them. How could such a man lead them in war? What they did not understand was that the Kingdom that Jesus taught about was not a worldly one. While Jesus seemed to have all the magical powers to feed thousands from just a little food, to heal the sick and even raise the dead, the Jews were disappointed that he would not use them against their enemies.
Jesus had a huge mass of followers, the people who were healed from the sick and ones those had seen his Miracles were convinced that Jesus was a man of God. But unfortunately, even they fled away when Jesus was crucified and denied that they were ever his followers.
Are the Christians of today similar to the half-believing Jews of Jesus’ days? Do we just go to church because we want miracles to happen in our life? Are we fighting our way in the world for the greater glory of God? These are the basic things we can ask ourselves.
This is a world in which atheism is on the rise because people claim that they cannot understand why a God should exist. In a way the church-going Christians are not very much advanced than atheists when it comes to understanding the Kingdom that Jesus taught. Some think of Jesus as a great teacher whose teachings should be followed. But is this true? Two thousand years ago, it was a very conservative Jewish society where Jesus was born into. Is it logical to think that a person who taught something as radical as an inverted kingdom that totally challenged the then system was just a teacher? It somehow does not seem a rational thought. Even now, in an era where people claim to be ‘liberated’, if a man tried to teach anything as radical as what Jesus did two thousand years ago and opposed the system of the world, he would be in no time labeled a mad man and be disposed of by the politicians in much less than the three years in which Jesus led his public life. (“ In the open space: God & Culture”, 2)
The whole point is that there is no reason why we Christians should doubt the divinity of Jesus, while at the same time we should do our part for the Kingdom of God and should prove ourselves to be worthy of it. Anything less than that is equal to not being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Works Cited:
1. Lewis C.S. “ Mere Christianity Study Guide”, Web, 9 Jan 2009
2. Andres C, “ In the open space: God & Culture”, A Rambling Book Review: The upside down Kingdom. Web. 4 Dec 2006
