12th December 2012

Wherever Jesus travelled teaching about the coming of God's reign, suffering people came seeking his help. Whether afflicted with sickness, infirmity, mental torment or social rejection, they came with their needs and those of others, having exhausted the possibility of help from others. He asks them personally about their need and acts both to make them well, to restore them to their proper place in the community.

In one case he challenges the view that sickness and affliction are caused by sin. He's asked about the cause of affliction to someone blind from birth: "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" Jesus replies "He was born blind so that God's power might be displayed in curing him." Blaming anyone for birth blindness has no place alongside this. Whether giving sight to the blind is achieved miraculously, or the latest eye surgery, it's still a revelation of divine creative power at work through compassionate action. Jesus speaks of God's reign coming in terms of outcomes with an impact on human lives.

"Are you the one to come or are we to look for another?" ask John's disciples. "Go and tell John what you hear and see - the blind recover their sight, the lame walk, lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the poor are brought the Good News ..." is Jesus' response. Look what's going on, he says. He doesn't invite them to look at himself. He points to God at work. In a real sense it doesn't matter whether good things happen through his agency or that of others. His ministry has a catalytic effect, stimulating countless people down the centuries to find practical healing solutions in meeting the need of others, carrying on what Jesus reveals possible by his actions.

Jesus' ministry comes to its climax as he willingly endures rejection and suffers death on the cross revealing loving compassion and forgiveness as the ultimate healing power, confirming God's victory over evil, over Hell and Satan/the Devil. This is a definitive moment in human history. Jesus reveals what is possible, what needs to be done in practice to overcome evil with good. This continues with many others throughout history being willing to suffer and give their lives defending justice and truth, unmasking and overcoming the destructive power of evil, and in compassionate service to others. The way of Jesus is not to destroy but to redeem and transform what sin distorts and impairs, to make something creative happen in place of what is destructive.

The work he did, he commissioned his disciples to continue, to enable God's will to be done 'on earth as in heaven'. When Christians look for Jesus' coming, they will recognise Him in any actions and outcomes which overcome evil with good, which heal and transform, which bring freedom justice and peace to the suffering - wherever this world is made a better place. 

10th December 2012

In creating humankind, Christians believe God made possible evolution of discernment between what builds up and what destroys, what's healthy and what's harmful for well-being. This discernment, our moral sense, works at a collective and personal level. It can be distilled into reasoned argument, but is more complex than this. It touches on every aspect of relatedness between self, others and God. So far the word sin has not been used. It belongs at the highest level of thought about human relatedness.

Sin is identified with mistakes or decisions causing needless suffering and chaos in life. It is rooted in self-centred motivation or attitude - putting self before others and before God, if God is acknowledged at all. The Genesis stories see suffering and misfortune, guilt, shame and blame emerge from an original human disregard and rebellion against God. Sin is about refusal to relate to God and respond to One who is source of all existence. 

Sin happens because humans are free, not prevented from doing what isn't good for them. Learning is part and parcel of human destiny. We come to understand what sin is by the damage it does. Experience teaches us which actions and attitudes do us no good. We discover through the passage of life that disquieting inner longing for God is better acknowledged and explored than it is ignored.

Scripture regards sin not merely as transgression against divine order, attracting punishment for the offence, it also regards sin as a spiritual ailment to be cured if we are to 'have life and have it in abundance'. With Christianity historically a cultural force in civilisation and nation building, it was inevitable that understanding sin in terms of crime and punishment would dominate.

Different generations and cultures have imagined Hell as a place of punishment, varied in relation to what kind of retribution people fear suffering most. Dante's classic portrayal of people in Hell reflected existing hierarchical social order. Measures of punishment were meted out to different ranks of people, according to the extent they abused their abilities, power and responsibility, or else surrendering themselves to passions that betrayed their humanity. 

The seven strata of Dante's hell are named after seven deadly sins - lust, greed, pride, vanity, anger, slander, avarice - each containing the appropriate corrective, applied eternally to all refusing to recognise their faults and failings. This status quo somewhat reflects the Gospel story of Dives and Lazarus, but doesn't equate with the Petrine idea of Christ rising from the dead evangelising spirits imprisoned in Sheol.

All ultimately face judgement, evaluation of their lives and consideration of their sin. The human face of God imagined by the church in the person of Jesus is one who enquires. "What have you done?" There's more in Scripture about Jesus as diagnostician and healer than about Jesus as judge.