April 9, 2018
Christian — a Disambiguation
The greatest problems always arise from misunderstanding, or from poor understanding, when we relate to things, notions and/or concepts and speak of them without having the faintest idea of what they are or what they mean. The notion of “Christian” is no exception, and this despite the overwhelming proportion of our population who still claim this quality for themselves, or who merely express a confessional “identity”. Many of us make only formal use of our belonging to this religion in order to celebrate or commemorate — once more, if further formalities were needed in our formalised and formalin-preserved society — the moments of our lives (baptism, marriage and burial). Others, and more of them, make use of the good occasion to sink deeper into consumerism and to “socialise” on the “networks”, using to excess the by now famous formula “may it be that…”.
But what does it really mean to be a Christian? How can one sum up this question in a few words, when for two thousand years thousands of volumes have been written on the subject by saints and by great scholars? How can one draw out the essence of the essence in a few words, as I had to do the other day before a young friend, the son of an older friend, for whom I tried to set the matter in a context he could understand and which might give meaning to his presence in church at the vigil of Great Thursday? How is one not to lose a young man’s interest and attention in long theological and historical discussions, without speaking to him of councils and holy fathers… or rather how is one to make him want to find out more about these things himself?
By shocking him! By shocking him with the plain evidence of the letter and the spirit of Scripture. By stating the conclusion, the Truth, then arguing it, and only at the end speaking of the premises — that is, by inverting the mechanism of classical formal logic in a manner compatible with the mind of our contemporary, a mind trodden down by the simple commands of smart devices. And all this in a few minutes… Otherwise, all is lost.
I shall try in a few words to shock you too, my good friends, or rather those of you who have not already been shocked by the Truth.
To be a Christian does not mean (only) to be a follower of Christ. Nor even to believe in Christ. To be a Christian means to be Christ. (The young man’s eyes had already widened at hearing my statement. I had managed to catch his attention! I hope I have not already lost yours…)
The becoming-man (and thus not merely the incarnation) of the Lord is the possibility (and not the virtuality) given to man of “becoming God”, that man might be as much God as Jesus was man, as Saint Athanasius the Great said. At the epiclesis (the liturgical moment at which the wine and the bread are sanctified, transubstantiated into the blood and body of the Lord) it is uttered: “and Thou didst take the form of man, that we too might take on the form of Thy glory.”
Not by chance, not invented… For all this has an undeniable scriptural foundation, which is why I shall be silent and let the Gospel of the young apostle John, “the disciple whom the Lord loved”, say it beyond doubt: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” (John 15:4). Two chapters further on, John, recounting the farewell discourse Jesus gave before him and the other apostles before His arrest and crucifixion, says: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (John 17:20-23).
Silence!
Let us read it once more: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us… And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one…”
This is the reason, the only reason, why the central prayer of Christendom begins with “Our Father, who art in heaven…” — namely the direct relation of sonship between every authentic Christian and God Himself (it is significant that in the liturgy the priest, before the Lord’s Prayer, says from the altar: “and make us worthy, O Father, to call upon Thee, the heavenly God, as Father, and to say:…”, after which the whole community says the “Our Father”).
This, moreover, is the element of “novation”, the qualitative leap of the New Testament over the Jewish Torah: the passage of man from subject (though the most beloved of subjects, so long as he belonged to the chosen people) to the status of son of God, as the same Apostle John says in the first chapter of his Gospel: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13). The passage is made from the possibility of attaining likeness through holiness (“ye shall be holy; for I am holy.” — Leviticus 11:44) to deification through identification with the uncreated energies of the Godhead (if not indeed to identity with the Trinitarian person of the Son): “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” (John 6:56-57). This is the primordial purpose of the sacrifice of Him who, some of us say, was God come in the flesh; and this is the finality of communion — of com-union, of becoming part — with the body and blood of the Lord, which confirms the qualitative leap beyond the Old Testament attainment, a leap underlined by the evangelist himself in the following verse: “This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” (John 6:58)
I know… it seems madness. But how else could the Truth be perceived by a mad world?
I shall not develop this subject further here and now, for I do not wish to weary you. I only hope that, before returning to the sterile daily bustle, this Easter may be for each of us, if not (yet) the moment of passage from religious formality and formalism to spiritual effectiveness, at least the passage to another level of understanding of the notion of Christian… in its primary, original sense… that sense which is a “stumblingblock” to the Jews and “foolishness” to the “Greeks”, as the Apostle Paul said (1 Corinthians 1:23). For if we understand that for a Christian “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3), and therefore that “eternal life” is gained through knowledge, and that “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12), only then shall we understand what it means to be a Christian.
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!”
Christ is risen!
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