Life of discipleship
We are at a regular time of the Church year. Regular time
might sound like a boring idea – non-eventful, every Sunday our beautiful Zion
altar is covered with green, many familiar faces left for their vacation
places… On the other hand, it is a good time to think about the walk in Christ
or life of the discipleship (Col. 2:6-7). When you read the Bible, you do not
find a verse about napping in Christ or – take an another extreme – running in
Christ. The discipleship is a walk in Christ – steady, sometimes non-eventful,
sometimes with no familiar face around or even alone…
When you come to our Fellowship Hall, you’ll find a passage
from the Book of Acts 2:42 on the back wall of the stage: and they devoted
themselves to the apostle’s teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and the praying. “They” to be the members of the First Messianic
congregation in Jerusalem – Jewish believers who recognized Jesus as the
promised Christ, the foretold Messiah. They formed the community being moved by
the Holy Spirit, for their hearts were pierced when St. Peter told them that the
Messiah was killed because of their sins. Actually, he was more poignant: Let
the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God made Him both Lord and
Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36). First congregation was
built on this very message: every one of them and every one of us was a reason
for the crucifixion, but God in Him won the battle with the death and devil, resurrecting
Jesus, and reconciling the whole world to Himself. Whole world! Every one of
us!
This happened about 2000 years ago miles and miles away from
our beloved Zion Lutheran church. How the Good News of Jesus was able to make
it to the Central Coast? The answer is both simple and difficult. The difficult
part is discussed in the books on the Church History – thousands upon thousands
of names, places, and dates can and should be remembered, faith heroes honored
(not worshiped), and great ideas that shaped our theology and practice
commemorated. The simple option sounds like this: daily, weekly, monthly, every
year in every century the Church of Christ continued in the same manner. They
were studying the Holy Scriptures, meeting with one another, partaking in the
sacrament at the Table of the LORD, and spending time in prayer (both communal
and private).
The thing is – the reach of Good News to the Central Coast
is not a matter of milage only, it is a generational challenge – I’ll repeat
myself, 2000 years. So, the life of the discipleship is a life of acquiring
deep Biblical convictions, practicing them in daily life, teaching them to your
children and to your children’s children or – as psalmist put it – “from
generation to generation” (Ps. 78:6), and also sharing these convictions with
others.
Therefore, there are three basic challenges to godly
discipleship. First, a church can stop sharing the Good News with others,
living comfortably as a good family of believers. The second one, is stopping
to teach our children. And the third one, going through gestures and motions
with no reflection on what the deep conviction of forgiveness is about.
No comments:
Post a Comment