Discovering Jesus – Chapter 12: The Life of Jesus Today
12. The Life of Jesus Today
From the streets of Bethlehem, where a crowd at census time forced a pregnant Mary and a silent Joseph to take refuge in an oxen stall, the life and teaching of Jesus has radiated to every country on earth. Today millions of Christians believe that Jesus continues in the life of his people. He is head of his body of believers. Today the Church is the most pervasive, widespread institution that the world has ever seen.
A missionary organization
Jesus quite clearly understood the universal nature of his mission. In his last command, he commissioned the disciples to take his message to all peoples and to establish the Church wherever people responded.
After the resurrection, Jesus commanded his disciples to meet him in Galilee:
The eleven disciples went to the hill in Galilee where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him, even though some of them doubted. Jesus drew near and said to them, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, then, to all people everywhere and make them my disciples: baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age. 1
Christianity has always had a missionary zeal and an evangelical fervour. Christians are called to tell others about their faith. Today, around the world, missionaries tell the message of Jesus and serve the needs of the people in countries other than their own – taking health and sanitation, introducing education and translating the Bible into 1800 different languages.
The ascension of Jesus
Later, Jesus called his disciples to the Mount of Olives. There, some 2750 feet above sea-level, he said goodbye to his friends, promising to send his Holy Spirit upon them.
But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 2
While he was talking to them, he ascended until he passed into a cloud from their sight.
There have been countless attempts since to explain how and why it happened. The ascension of Jesus, however, gave to the disciples the clear impression that, whilst he had left them to return to his Father, they had a task to do. With great determination they now set about taking his message to other parts of the world.
Although they might go to the uttermost fringes of the known world, they would not be travelling alone. Those disciples had indelibly impressed upon them the fact that Jesus would go with them. As he had come to them in the upper room where they had locked themselves in fear, or when they were fishing back in Galilee not knowing quite what to do, so he would come to them once more wherever they might be.
Legends abound. It is thought by some that Jesus even appeared to Peter as he was leaving Rome to ask him the question, ‘Where do you go?’ Peter evidently was so impressed that he turned back into the city of persecution. Although an old man, he was to die upside down on a cross for the amusement of Nero’s friends.
The coming of the Holy Spirit
Jesus had promised his disciples that when he would leave them, he would send them another helper, ‘the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God.’ 3
That promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit completely revolutionised the life of the Church. Fifty days after the resurrection, when they met in Jerusalem for the annual Pentecost celebrations, the disciples were filled with the presence and power of God’s Spirit. With great boldness, they proclaimed the risen Lord, baptising three thousand into the Church. 4 Soon we read of five thousand being added to the faith. 5 Within a century the message of the gospel of Jesus had spread throughout all the known world.
The Holy Spirit was given to be one who would be a ‘comforter’, ‘advocate’, ‘counsellor’ and ‘friend’. 6 All of these words describe the presence of God in a new way.
Just as Old Testament believers had known God as Creator and Judge, so now the disciples knew God as a caring Father. With God’s Spirit within, they were comforted and empowered. To the rest of the world, however, the Holy Spirit was to be the Judge who would convict, convince and convert. 7
We can experience the presence of the Holy Spirit by effective living. His indwelling presence enables us to stand firm in our faith, coping with the pressures of life. Yet Jesus comes to some people in rare but undeniably real ways.
On a road to Damascus, while harbouring angry thoughts towards the new group of Christians perverting the truths of the Jewish faith, a Pharisee by the name of Saul of Tarsus was stopped in his tracks. In the glare of the midday sun, he fell to the ground, hearing the voice of the risen Lord calling him to stop persecuting the believers and proclaim the faith. 8 Thus the main persecutor in the early years of the church’s life became its greatest propagandist, taking the message throughout Asia-Minor, Macedonia, Greece, Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean. Confined to prison Saul, now renamed Paul, wrote letters to his converts, in the process providing most of the material for the New Testament and the major impetus for the growth of the early Church.
Paul and other missionaries found that God’s Spirit gave them gifts and graces to equip them for their various tasks. 9
The Church now and in the future
It is beyond our scope to trace the growth and influence of the Christian Church over twenty centuries but today, in all of its variety, the Church of Jesus Christ is stronger than ever before, growing at a faster rate than in the past.
In Taiwan, for example, the Presbyterian Church has recently completed a five-year plan by planting 500 new churches. The Church in Hong Kong is halfway through a church-growth project which will double its membership in the next ten years.
In mainland China, the 800,000 Christians there at the start of the Communist government in 1949 has grown to thirty million despite adverse pressures. Throughout Asia as a whole, the Christian population has exploded from four million Christians in 1900 to over four hundred million today!
In Black Africa, twenty thousand people on average embrace the Christian faith every day. For the first time in 1500 years, there have been large-scale movements of Moslems from the Islamic to the Christian faith. In Third World countries over one thousand new churches open their doors every Sunday. Today the largest congregations, some in excess of one hundred thousand people, are to be found in Korea, Brazil and Kenya. 10
These facts are cited not to make us complacent. However they effectively challenge the commonplace notion that Christianity is on the decline. The opposite is actually the case!
The return of Jesus
The Church still looks to the completion of this present age with the coming Jesus Christ.
Over the centuries the Apostle’s Creed has reiterated this certainty: ‘From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.’ This sentence is frequently hurried over, but we can still accept the fact of the second coming of Jesus.
There are at least twenty four references in scripture to the return of Jesus to this earth. 11
Christians, like the early Hebrews, look forward to God’s special intervention at the end of history. They believe that, in Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah has come that that he will come again to climax history and usher in a new age.
(a) The belief of the early church
The early church believed in an imminent, visible and highly dramatic return of Jesus. They expected it would shortly follow his ascension into heaven, ushering them into a new era on earth in their own lifetime. Some of the early Christians even stopped working at their normal jobs in order to await his return!
In almost every age since there have been those prophets who have predicted his return in their lifetime. 12 Paul refers to the return of Jesus in almost every one of his New Testament letters. It is interesting to note that in one of his earliest letters, he encouraged a belief in the immediate return of Jesus. By the time he had written his second letter to that congregation, he had tempered his expectation with patience. 13
Christians believe that Christ has come and that his presence on earth, by his Spirit, has provided us with greater understanding and insight. Further, they believe that he is coming as day-by-day he enters afresh into the lives of people who confess him as Lord and Saviour.
But Christians also believe that Christ will come. In a way that is beyond our understanding and at a time beyond our expectation, the Omega point of human history will come. Then this world will stand beneath Christ as Lord.
To live with that belief is to add a new dimension to living. Instead of a pessimistic and drab outlook, belief in the return of Jesus adds excitement and expectancy to Christian worship and living.
(b) The teaching of Jesus
In one of his most vivid parables, Jesus indicated that the nations of this world would be judged by him in accordance with how they had cared for the needy:
When the Son of Man comes as King and all the angels with him, he will sit on his royal throne, and the people of all the nations will be gathered before him. Then he will divide them into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the righteous people at his right and the others at his left. Then the King will say to the people on his right, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world. I was hungry and you fed me, thirty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.’
The righteous will then answer him, ‘When, Lord did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’
The King will reply,’ I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.’ 14
God’s caring judgement has been largely ignored in our era. Many theologians have internalised the judgement: just as the kingdom is realised now within us, so the judgement of God is experienced here and now.
Often it is Christian martyrs and those who suffer for their faith who most look forward to the return of Christ. ‘How long, O Lord? Come quickly!’ 15 is the cry that comes from their hearts. The fact that we are being judged here and now is something that we can easily understand.
This is how judgement works: the light has come into the world, but people love darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. 16
But Jesus also said:
I am telling you the truth: whoever hears my words and believes in him who sent me has eternal life. He will not be judged, but has already passed from death to life. 17
Not only are we being judged now, but we are being judged by our own actions. The standard of judgement is our beliefs and our behaviour. The ‘book of life’, which figured largely in the preaching and writings of previous centuries, is merely the record that we are writing now in judgement upon ourselves. 18
The positive emphasis of the Christian faith is that Jesus came not to condemn, but to redeem. 19 It’s our own actions that condemn us and it is his word that judges us. To refuse him is to condemn ourselves.
(c) The response of society today
In the Falklands War of 1982 the men on board HMS Sheffield never knew what hit them. An Argentinian jet launched an Exocet missile forty miles away. That missile, fifteen feet long, travelled at the speed of sound only eight feet above water. Its computers had locked it to the heart of the Sheffield. It took only four minutes to reach its target; within twenty seconds all that was left was a wall of impenetrable smoke and fire.
Some believe that this world is going to finish as if ‘zapped’ by a mighty Exocet, Planet Earth dissolving in nuclear might. Others believe that ‘this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper’. 20 Still others look at the pollution havoc mankind has wreaked on his environment and believe that we will finish with a wheeze, a cough and a global gasp of emphysema.
Whatever your view, mankind’s hopes have turned from buoyant optimism to grim despair. Today the wave of euphoria in the 1960s has turned into pessimism as we approach the 1990s. Scientific technologists are pessimistic about the future: our means of production have not kept pace with our population. Our forests are being denuded, our deserts are expanding and our nuclear weapons are being stockpiled.
Monetary expansionism has failed this decade. The world is on the brink of international bankruptcy. Capitalism is failing because it intentionally places concern for people below economic gain. The United Nations have had a series of conferences, each one related to a major world crisis, on ‘world resources’, ‘world food production’, ‘world population’ and ‘world environment’. Zero growth in consumption, pollution and armaments may give us hope, but these are idle dreams as long as nations refuse to limit their enjoyment, prestige, possessions or power.
Likewise, messianic Marxism is economically and spiritually bankrupt. The ideals of Marx and Lenin have failed miserably in practice. Russia and China, the two dominant communist superpowers, still face major problems. Rather than ushering in a new age of individual freedom and social cohesiveness, their regimes are marked by political suppression and their economies by stultifying mediocrity.
Hope for a dark age
Yet the Christian lives in hope. Jesus referred to the signs of his coming. He said there would be widespread immorality, fighting among the nations, wars and rumours of wars, false prophets, scoffing against those who believe in Christ, persecution against the true faith, world dictators, famine in many parts of the earth, recurring earthquakes and, from other passages in the Old Testament, the return of the Jewish people to their own homeland.
For the first time in world history all of these signs are present today. Is that why Francis Coppola called his film ‘Apocalypse Now’ ? Jesus warned us against people who would predict false times but urged us to always be ready for his return: ‘the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.’ 21
How can we discover the true identity of Jesus? John the Baptist, in prison, wanted to know if Jesus was the Messiah or not. Jesus replied to John’s enquiry in a most sensible way. He told those who bore John’s message not to believe what other people might say, but to look at the claims of Jesus, test them out by their results and then make up their own mind:
Go back and tell John what you are hearing and seeing: the blind can see, the lame can walk, those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases are made clean, the deaf hear, and the dead are brought back to life, and the Good News is preached to the poor. How happy are those who have no doubts about me! 22
Similarly those who wonder who Jesus is should ask those who have tried him. Seek any Christian who is living a vibrant life and ask them the secret of their own faith. Read the biographies of people who have been persecuted, have been imprisoned in concentration camps and have suffered.
Read history and look at the result of the Christian faith from the earliest days when Emperor Julian urged pagans to try and imitate the works of Christians. Examine the stories of those who ended the killing of unwanted children, who brought about the end of gladiatorial slaughter, who ended the killing of captives taken in war, or who brought the first fruits of humanitarian and welfare endeavour. Look at those who abolished slavery, who initiated prison reform, who established factory laws and ended child labour. Think of the foundations of our hospital system, our ambulance system and our education system and see if you can discover why it was that Christians initiated these reforms.
But more than anything else, try him yourself. Jesus called people to follow him. In his most gracious manner, he said:
There is no other way. To be a contemporary disciple could be a life-changing experience. In Jesus you will find truth on which your mind can rest, facts that your faith can grasp and a friendship that nothing can end. To find Jesus Christ is to find the meaning of life itself.
Endnotes:
1. Matthew 28:16-20
2. Acts 1:8
3. John 14:17
4. Acts 2:41
5. Acts 4:4
6. John 14:16 and 26; 15:26; 16:7
7. John 16:7-11
8. Acts 9:1-9
9. Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; Galatians 5:22-23
10. From an article by C. Peter Wagner, International Church Growth Bulletin, September 1981. Also refer to articles on various countries in the World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World AD 1900-2000, Oxford University Press, 1983. Editor: David Barrett
11. e.g. John 14:3; Acts 1:11; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 16:22; Revelation 22:20
12. Luke 9:27
13. 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
14. Matthew 25:31-40
15. cf. Jesus’ answer in Revelation 22:30
16. John 3:19
17. John 5:24
18. Revelation 20:11-15
19. John 3:17
20. T.S Eliot, Hollow Men
21. Matthew 24:44
22. Matthew 11:4-6
23. Matthew 11:29-30
For personal reading
Theme: The Ascended King
Monday : Christ’s special agent (John 16:1-15)
Tuesday : Removed from sight (Acts 1:1-12)
Wednesday : Equipped to serve (1 Corinthians 12:1-11)
Thursday : God’s dramatic rescue plan (Colossians 1:15-20)
Friday : The heavenly victor (Revelation 19:11-16)
Saturday : The hero’s triumph (Revelation 22:12-21)
Sunday : Inseparable! (Romans 8:31-39)
For group reading
Topic: The Life of Jesus Today
1. Christianity has always had a missionary zeal and an evangelical fervour. Do you see evidence of this in your church today? Is there room for improvement?
2. The Holy Spirit was God’s gift to empower believers in their task of witnessing to Christ. What evidence is there for calling this century ‘the era of the Holy Spirit’?
3. Christianity stands or falls with the changed lives of its followers. What changes have been found in your life? Is there enough evidence to ‘convict’ you of the charge that you are a Christian?
4. A Christian knows what the future holds because he know who holds the future. What is the Christian hope?
5. Believing in the return of Jesus adds a new dimension to living. What is that dimension?
6. Jesus asked his followers, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ What is your answer to that question?