The Concrete Christ

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I recently read The Christ of the Indian Road  by E. Stanley Jones, a missionary in India in the mid 1920s. In reading chapter 11, "The Concrete Christ", I came to realize, rather unexpectedly, that Jesus never argued -- he stated what was. Period! He never used words such as "perhaps", or "maybe", or "I think." His words have a concrete weight to them. They fall upon the soul with the authority of certainty.

I continue to work at releasing Christ from my logical put-things-into-categories brain and absorbing him into the warmth of my needs-no-explanations heart. These selected quotes from that chapter are helping me in that process.

As he came among men he did not try to prove the existence of God -- he brought him. He lived in God and men looking upon his face could not find it within themselves to doubt God.

He did not argue, as Socrates, the immortality of the soul -- he raised the dead.

He did not argue that God answers prayer -- he prayed, sometimes all night, and in the morning "the power of the Lord was present to heal."

He did not argue the worth of womanhood and the necessity for giving them equal rights -- he treated them with infinite respect, gave to them his most sublime teaching, and when he arose from the dead he appeared first to a woman.

He did not teach in the schoolroom manner the necessity of humility--he "girded himself with a towel and kneeled down and washed his disciples' feet."

He did not paint a Utopia, far off and unrealizable--he announced that the kingdom of heaven is within us

He did not discourse on the beauty of love -- he loved.

He greatly felt the pressing necessity of the physical needs of the people around him, but he did not merely speak on their behalf--he fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes.

Many teachers of the world have tried to explain everything--they changed little or nothing. Jesus explained little and changed everything.

He did not go into long discussions about the Way to God and the possibility of finding him -- he quietly said to men, "I am the Way."

Many speculate with Pilate and ask, "What is truth?" Jesus shows himself and says, "I am the Truth."

Jesus defines life itself, by presenting himself and saying, "I am the Life." Anyone who truly looks upon him knows in the inmost depths of his soul that he is looking on Life itself.

There are many ways to love Jesus. I love Him with words. I love Him with song. I love Him in many ways like I love my father. It is one thing to love Him for what He has done in my life. It is an altogether different thing to love Him for who He IS in my life. For He loves me:

… by showing me the Way, whenever I care to follow.

… by whispering the Truth whenever I care to listen.

… by giving me Life in Him whenever I care to accept.

… by dwelling within me in spite of my brokenness.

… and having the patience to wait expectantly for me in the process.

I am failing at trying to paint this picture with words. But it won't keep me from trying. Stay tuned.

[SJ]

I love E Stanley Jones. I haven’t read much of his prose writing, but I have a devotional by him that is really good. I followed it for about 3 months or so. He was an amazing man. There is a retreat center in central Minnesota modeled on his “ashrams” in India where he would invite people of all faiths. They would gather and he would do a presentation on the gospel of Christ then divide everybody up into discussion groups. Everyone would talk about Christ with no intent of conversion. He noticed when he did this, those who did convert were much more humble and more true to their faith than if they were converted by emotion and/or threat. I should read the book you are reading. Another great man like Jones is Leslie Newbigin. He also was a missionary to India and China until he realized Britain was a giant mission field as well.

Just one thing about what Jim said: Is it not a categorization itself to differentiate the logic of the mind from the warmth of the heart? In ancient Israel, the heart was not the seat of feeling at all but rather the locus of decision-making, which is a fundamental unity of the two sides you propose. Our modern differentiation of mind and heart would have been inconceivable to the mind of the Hebrew. I have tried very hard to avoid this differentiation we so love between the mind and the heart because it does not make sense, ultimately. I have begun to think Jesus warms my mind with the logic of his heart, or melts my logic with his mindful heart, or reasons the feelings of the mind so clearly that the ideas and concepts of the heart have a clear and radiant expression in our lives and world.

The meditation on Jones was very evocative. I liked it quite a bit. The Greek worldview is difficult to purge. Be careful, though. If you purge Greek thinking, you will have to let go of a lot of things modern Christians hold dear. The first to go are Omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence – all words that occur nowhere in the Bible and can only be inferred. However, those words can be found everywhere in Greek philosophy with regard to God. Does that mean God is not those things? Not necessarily, just that they can’t be defined by Greek ideas. It strikes me that the 3 omnis cannot be relational and can only be impersonal. The God of the Hebrews, however, particularly as exemplified in Jesus Christ is all about being in relationship. As a result, knowing, presence and power cannot be understood in Greek terms. On the other hand, Israel was a province of Greek influence for hundreds and hundreds of years. Can we really purge Greek dualism from our thinking and sensing? I don’t have an answer.

Just some philosophic and theological conundrums to chew upon…

Peace! Seth

 
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