Perhaps the greatest barrier we sophisticated, modern, Western people have to seeing Jesus for who he really is what's sometimes referred to as the "fact-values split." The great British missionary, Lesslie Newbigin, once described it like this:
It is one of the key features of our culture, and one that we shall have to examine in some depth, that we make a sharp distinction between a world of what we call "values" and a world of what we call "facts." In the former world we are pluralists; values are a matter of personal choice. In the latter we are not; facts are facts, whether you like them or not. It follows that, in this culture, the Church and its preaching belong to the world of "values..." The Church is not generally perceived as concerned with facts, with the realities which finally govern the world and which we shall in the end have to acknowledge whether we like them or not. In this cultural milieu, the confident announcement of the Christian faith sounds like an arrogant attempt of some people to impose their values on others. As long as the Church is content to offer its beliefs modestly as simply one of many brands available in the ideological supermarket, no offense is taken. But the affirmation that the truth in the gospel ought to govern public life is offensive. (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 7)
Furthermore, many Christians have made peace with this status quo, content to describe our "personal relationship with Jesus" as a private, emotional experience that helps us cope with the cruelities of life under the sun, while we listen at Christmastime to meek little pastors drone on-and-on about "light being born in our hearts." But this picture of Jesus, true as it may be, is not complete. He's LORD, not just of my heart and life but of the whole world. Colossians 1 describes him in unmistakably cosmic terms: "For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
Jesus is Lord of all things, which means he is what Newbigin calls "public truth." In other words, he's not just the plastic bobble-head buddy on your cabbie's dashboard. He's the clue to understanding all of history...the one who makes sense out of everything in the world...all things, not just my things...public truth, not private opinion...facts, not values.
If Jesus really is public truth, then true witness means applying the gospel events - his life, death, resurrection, and second coming - to real, public conversations that everyone in the world is concerned with. I recently saw this in action while reading Pastor Tim Keller's (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, NYC) speech at the 9-11 rembrance ceremony attended by victims' families, President Bush, Senator Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki, and Rudy Guiliani. Read it for yourself here at his son Michael's blog, and notice how he winsomely but boldly shows how Jesus death and resurrection give meaning to even the most tragic events.
(HT: Steve McCoy)
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