Magyar Egyház, 1970 (49. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1970-04-01 / 4. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 9 MAGYAR CHURCH P€jg®€C«B>a>® 1970 Message from the Presidents of the World Council of Churches TO KNOW AND NOT TO KNOW What will happen next? None of us knows. ^ e do not know what is coming to any one of us with our next hour or our next day. We do not know what new problems will be thrust at all of us by tomorrow’s new discovery. We do not know whether the powers of the scientists to predict and control the future will be used to make us happier or to deepen our frustrations. We do not know whether our failures to relieve hunger, injustice and squalor will lead to a violence that no one can control for us or whether our increasing efforts to face these problems will be sufficient to allow peaceful progress towards a more just world. Many men, women and children do not know if they will have strength for tomorrow, food for tomorrow, hope for tomorow. Nor do we, who are Christians, know what is happening to the Church or even what will happen to our faith. And with our uncertainty goes fear. We are right to face our ignorance. We are free to face our fear. Especially at this time of Pentecost. For we know that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead (Rom. 8:11) is given to the men and women who follow this Jesus Christ. This is the Spirit of the living God whose life is love and whose power is often hidden but always undefeated. This we know because we have seen his life and his love, his power and his victory, in Jesus Christ, the Lord. The power and the presence of Jesus Christ was the power and the presence of God. So miracles were done, evil and sickness were defeated, men saw authority and some men began to have faith. But none the less Jesus was forsaken, he suffered powerlessness at the hands of those in power, and he endured death. Then it was given to his disciples to know, as it is given to us to know, that God had raised him up. This life of His is the life of God in the world for us men and for our salvation. This knowledge of God’s power and God’s presence given in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was sealed, and is sealed, by the gift of the Holy Spirit. So we know that we are not left alone in our lack of knowledge, that we are not forsaken in our fearfulness, that we are not abandoned in our weakness. We are right to face our ignorance. We are free to face our fear. We are free, too, to confess our failures as Christians and as churches to he true to what God has given us. For it is God who gives, it is Jesus Christ who suffered and rises again, it is the Spirit who works, suffers and renews within us. So, at Pentecost, we call you to face ignorance, fear and failure and to rejoice. For what we have truly to face in the questions we cannot answer, in the facts that cause us fear and in the failures which have frustrated our witness, is the Holy Spirit of the living God, the very life and presence of Jesus Christ, who is the reality of God made flesh to be with us and for us. This is the Holy Spirit who gives us strength to do new work, to discover new hopes, and to take new steps towards justice, peace and living to the full. So we confidently remind you of the apostolic words “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:23f). The Presidents of the World Council of Churches: Honorary president: REV. DR. W. A. VISSER T HOOFT— Geneva, Switzerland PATRIARCH GERMAN OF SERBIA— Belgrade, Yugoslavia BISHOP HANNS LILJE—Hanover, Germany REV. DR. D. T. NILES—Atchuvely, Ceylon REV. DR. ERNEST A. PAYNE—Pitsford, England REV. DR. JOHN C. SMITH—New York BISHOP A. H. ZULU—Eshowe, South Africa * In the World Council of Churches, 242 Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Old Catholic Churches are united in Christ. Widely diverse in their history, traditions, and organization, these churches all agree to the basis of the Council as “a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the Glory of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
