Pilgrim Soldier

In some ways this post is an extension of my previous one from Incarnate as it carries on our responsibility to live incarnational lives that whilst unremarkable in its events is noticably different in the way it is lived.

Both Stuart Murray-Williams and Gary Bishop (i’ve only really read their papers so far due to all the other stuff I’m reading) pick up on our need to live truly human lives. Murray-Williams says:

Maybe only God can live a fully authentic human life. But the incarnation of Jesus … demonstrates that God wants to live that fully human life through us…

and Gary writes that:

…very little has been offered which would encourage or equip the faithful in their humanity.

These two thoughts combined in my mind to create a couple of questions. Could it be that true holiness is found in becoming more like Jesus in his humanity? Is holiness really about becoming fully human in the way that God originally intended us to be when he created us?

One of the consequences of this sort of thinking would be that we would start to teach discipleship in terms of equipping people to live their lives. We could concentrate on making disciples who were sanctified in their attitude toward the world and were committed to bringing about the Kingdom, yet were fully immersed in living lives as God intends us to. It would stop us putting our efforts into what we shouldn’t be doing and instead free us up to do the things that we should be doing.

If we started to live in a way that reflected the full humanity that is our touchstone in living, then we would be taking our holiness out into the world, rather than separating ourselves from it. This is what Jesus did! He brought his holiness from heaven to earth and followed his Father’s will in all things. What better example can we ask for?

Finally I’m getting round to posting about the Incarnate Conference held last month. I only managed to get to 1 1/2 sessions due to other commitments but, my friend and former boss, Henrik sent me the full set of conference papers so I have been making my way through them. Anyway, enough of the background stuff, on with my thoughts.

Incarnate started with a paper by Stuart Murray-Williams with the title “How is Jesus the focus of incarnational living?” At the conclusion of this paper Murray-Williams says:

Jesus was utterly unremarkable for 90% of his life. Only in the final three years of public ministry did he become extraordinary. Nobody in Nazareth, except Mary, knew that he was anyone special. The Gospels report that his family and neighbours were taken completely by surprise when he ‘came out’ as the Son of God.

Now I understand where he is coming from in writing this as he was trying to put across the point that much of real incarnational ministry is found in the mundane routine of daily living. In this I fully agree! However, whilst Jesus’ actual life may have been largely unremarkable in the day to day stuff the way he lived it certainly wasn’t. Luke tells us in his gospel that after the events of Jerusalem when Jesus was 12, he returned to Nazareth and:

…grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.

To me this suggests that Jesus’ life may have been unremarkable in that nothing much happened that wasn’t run-of-the-mill (unless of course you give credence to some of the non-canonical gospels that are around), his life was remarkable enough that it was noticed by those who lived with him in Nazareth. They might not have realised that he was the incarnate Son of God but they saw something special in him.

This means that if we as his people want to live like him, then we must live in such a way that even in the routine, run-of-the-mill existence that is human life that is visibly different to the norm.

So in reality Jesus was remarkably unremarkable and consequently we have to live in the same way. Living like this, being immersed in the community just like Jesus was in the community in Nazareth cannot help but have an effect on those around us. Then we are able to reveal to those around us the one whose example we follow.

Today has been something of a busy day! Whilst the alarm went off at the usual time I was on a train before 8:00am up to London for the Incarnate conference at the William Booth College. I was only booked in for the one day, but now wish that I was able to go for the next two days. Unfortunately it won’t be possible as I have other commitments this week. Still the time that I spent there was great and has given me a lot of food for thought, even though I only managed one full session.

It was also great to catch up with some old friends, some going back the best part of 20 years, as well as meeting a couple of people that I’ve only met through my online activities.

The reason my time at the college was so short was that I had to get down to Southern DHQ before 5:00pm for a Candidates Interview, along with Zoe. This was the final one before our Assessment Conference, which is scheduled for the last weekend of March. It seemed to go very well and it was great to get a sound endorsement by both the Divisional Commander and our Support Officer.