Magyar Egyház, 1976 (55. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1976-03-01 / 3. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 5 MAGYAR CHURCH CHRISTIAN FAITH AND THE PRESENT HOUR “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” —Hebr. 11:1. Dante begins his “Divine Comedy” with these words, “Midway upon the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing to tell what this wild and rough and difficult wood was, which in thought renews my fear.” You and I can share Dante’s anxiety in our day for we also face a wood and a world as dark as his. And our is perhaps more complex. But Dante didn’t stop with anxiety and neither can we. This was the theme of the hymns of Paul Gerhardt, who was like a lark singing in the heavens far above the red battlefields of the Thirty Years’ War. The glint of the Eternal is in men like Dante and Paul Gerhardt. They dramatize that which is imperishable. They are custodians of those things which will not die. They symbolize “The Contribution of the Christian Faith to the Present Hour.” Let me begin with the observation that each of us may live in three areas or levels of life. There is one’s own intimate inner world. And there is the ultimate world of nature and of God. In between the intimate personal world and the ultimate life of God is what we call the stage of history. When this stage of history is so violently upset as at the present time, the task of making personal religion and faith in God practical is exceedingly difficult for many people, but equally imperative. What is the contribution of the Christian faith to the present hour? First, the Christian Faith must give a permanent background to the passing, tragic drama. “Oh, where are kings and empires now of old that went and came?” ... And they still are passing, but they pass in front of the eternal hills. “Social philosophies may wax and wane, civilizations may rise and fall, epochs may come and go because they all share in the frailty of mortal things.” It is therefore the mission of the Christian faith to keep before men’s minds as vividly as possible the permanent background in front of which the scenes of 1970 pass. This is not alone the task of the historian. We are related to the past and future as to a stream, but we are also related to that which is beyond history and from that relationship, which transcends all that now happens, we may gain wisdom, light and power by which to interpret, judge and guide the passing scene. You and I watch the turbulent storm of history, bearing all of men’s hopes and fears, knowing that these events must and will end. In the meantime the Christian Faith asserts that the providence and purposes of God work out through this world, that there is or can be a relation between the temporal and the eternal. The consciousness of God, working in history, comes not alone from the contemplation of events but by confidence in a central Person, Jesus Christ, Who is in history but beyond it and who makes it possible for us to interpret these events. To see the eternities of God coming into human flesh and life through Jesus Christ is to be aware of that which is permanent behind the passing, tragic drama. Second, it is the mission of the Christian Faith to provide the way and method by which men may ally themselves with that which is permanent and which towers o’er the wrecks of time. I have been watching references in recent months to the guidance and power of God as expressed by various national leaders. These modern words seem strangely reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln’s classic concern that we should be on God’s side. Men yearn for God’s alliance. So someone has insisted that “in order to live triumphantly a man must feel that he is allied with that which will endure,” with something greater and infinitely more permanent than the recurring squabbles and fights of nations. Men crave fellowship with the Divinity that shapes their ends. To fulfill this universal yearning is the purpose of prayer and worship. The meaning of prayer is not to influence the purposes of God but to learn those purposes. Christian prayer is built upon the conviction that it is possible for men to share in the purposes of God, that men may know something of what God is doing in the world, for He does not call us servants who merely take orders, but friends who share His creative purposes. Likewise, worship is dedicated to the practical aim not of changing the will of God, but of
