The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning

Author:Brennan Manning [Manning, Brennan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, General, Personal Growth, Christian Ministry, Discipleship
ISBN: 9780307759344
Google: Wv3MDAhAqOwC
Amazon: B004FGMDAU
Publisher: Multnomah
Published: 2011-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

Tepid preaching and lifeless worship have spread so many ashes on the fire of the gospel that we scarcely feel the glow anymore. We have gotten so used to the ultimate Christian fact—Jesus naked, stripped, crucified, and risen—that we no longer see it for what it is: a summons to strip ourselves of earthly cares and worldly wisdom, of all desire for human praise, of greediness for any kind of comfort (spiritual consolations included). It is a summons to readiness to stand up and be counted as peacemakers in a violent world. It is a call to let go of the pretense that we really aren’t worldly (the kind of worldliness that prefers the more attractive duty to the less attractive and leads us to put out more effort for people we want to stand well with). Even the last rag we cling to—the self-flattery that suggests we are being humble when we disclaim any resemblance to Jesus Christ—even that rag has to go when we stand face-to-face with the crucified Son of God.

Charles Colson, Watergate crook and wheeler-dealer par excellence, is a witness to many aspects of resurrection-centered spirituality. His awareness of salvation-in-community speaks for itself through his prison ministry. In addition, his life is a lovely letter to God signed with the signature of Jesus. Recently he learned that he has a malignant cancer. He thought he would be shattered, but he discovered in his confrontation with fear and suffering that there is nothing for which God does not pour out His grace abundantly. The tumor was caught early, and doctors have assured him that the prognosis is excellent.

Colson said, “My suffering provided some fresh insights … into the health-and-wealth gospel. If God really delivers his people from all pain and illness, as is so often claimed, why was I so sick? Had my faith become weak? Had I fallen from favor? No, I had always recognized such teaching as false theology. But after four weeks in a maximum care unit, I came to see it as something else: a presumptuous stumbling block to real evangelism.”

Dragging his I.V. pole down a hospital corridor, Colson was asked by a Hindu visiting his desperately ill son whether or not God would heal the boy if he, the father, were to be born again. “He said he had heard things like that on television. As I listened, I realized how arrogant health-and-wealth religion sounds to suffering families. Christians can be spared suffering, but little Hindu children go blind. One couldn’t blame a Hindu or Muslim or agnostic for resenting, even hating, such a God.” As for his cancer, “We don’t begin to know all the reasons why. But we do know that our suffering and weakness can be an opportunity to witness to the world the amazing grace of God at work through us.”8

Paschal spirituality is nothing less than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, a complete attachment to his person, a sharing in the rhythm of his death and resurrection, a participation in his life of sorrow, rejection, loneliness, and suffering.

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