Magyar Egyház, 1979 (58. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1979-02-01 / 2-3. szám
10 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ But there is a second question. If we open the door and respond with our love and faith to all that we know of God in Jesus Christ, how will he come? Certainly he will come in humble, unconventional ways. When he came to Bethlehem he came in strange simplicity. When Christ entered the capital city he certainly came in a way the secular citizen must have thought to be strange for a conqueror. In a modem British passion play a character responds to the first Palm Sunday procession: “A King on a ruddy donkey.” When he returned from death he came to those who loved and mourned him in ways that baffled and almost shocked them. Mary supposed him to be a gardener. Thomas was sure that what the other disciples reported from the Upper Room was an illusion and that the one hailed as Risen Lord was an impostor. “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe,” said Thomas (John 20:25). He comes now in strange and surprising ways. A knock on the door of our minds bidding us reach a decision about his claim to be the Savior as well as Teacher and Example, is his way of coming. Sometimes a call from a fellow human being for help may be Christ himself asking to be welcomed. When we open the door of our lives, our homes, or our church, he will come in to eat with us. He comes in the sacrament of baptism. He comes in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. He comes in our worship as the Real Presence. We go out believing more in him, ourselves, in the work God has given us to do, and in the future of the world. He comes in Bible study as the Word finds us. He comes in private prayer. “I will sup with him” is the King James translation. To us, supper is not usually the main meal. But the word translated “sup” or “eat” in our English Bibles is the word used for the chief meal of the day. At this meal a man sat and talked for a long time. This is not a mere courtesy call that Christ offers to make. He wants to stay with us. This is precisely what Christ offers to do. God in Jesus Christ enters when we open the door, and usually he comes to disturb our peace and overturn some things which need to be overturned. His coming may take the form of a jolt to our consciences on some moral question or an ethical issue in in our profession or in our political interests. He did that on the Sunday of his last week: “And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer”; but you make it a den of robbers’” (Matthew 21:12-13). When we insist on practices which are incompatible with God’s kingdom, he upsets our neatly prepared arrangements. The Christ of the Revelation declares “All those whom I love I correct and discipline. Therefore, shake off your complacency and repent” (Revelation 3:19, Phillips). “Behold. . . .” When we open the door — God enters, in Christ. He comes in ways surprising, humble, and intimate. He comes as a Disturber of conscience. He also comes as Physician, to heal. In Matthew’s account of the events of Palm Sunday and Jesus’ last week, immediately after telling of Jesus’ visit to the Temple he adds: “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them” (Matthew 21:14). When we open the doors of our temples, both of the inner sanctuaries of our lives and the sanctuary of our church, he comes to heal. How often we need the eyes of our minds and souls opened to the meaning of life, the reality of God, the mighty acts of God in our “creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life,” and above all, to our redemption through the death and victory of our Lord Jesus Christ! How often our spirits are lamed, hurt, and crippled by our own follies and failures! Moreover, spiritual sickness is often a contributing factor to physical illness. Conversely, as our spirits are healed of doubt, resentment, guilt, and despair, our bodily health improves. But even if we must live with some disability, Christ imparts his own strength. We realize what the New Testament means when it speaks of being “strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16), because Christ dwells in our hearts through faith. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”
