NARROW WAY, ULTRA LIFE

Our real life is Christ our life – ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ Matt 14.20. This is the narrow way as compared to the wide way of religion; the way of contract and formulated self-grace – the way of I will do this so that God will do that.

Our life in Christ is never a contract or formula. He Himself is our life. It is Jesus who is our belonging and our union with God. It is He who undid Adam’s separation and Jesus who becomes us as Christ our life. In Jesus our oneness with God is accomplished. Incarnated with Jesus you grow into the real you to be holy as God is holy.
 
DEAD TREE LIVE TREE
 
The bigot is the hazard of Christmas parties and holidays with relatives. A bigot is certain about much and knowledgeable about little. Bigots are defined by their prejudices and ignorance. Not all are outwardly boorish. Just smug in their favourite ideas.
 
Humility and a keenness to listen is the door to wisdom, understanding and fullness in Christ.
 
LEARNING TO BE COMES FROM LEARNING TO SEE
 
We do not know everything about Christ and our life in Him immediately we decide for Him. We don’t know anything about anything except by finding out over time and paying attention to what life presents. Those with a passion for life have a passion for truth, since it is the other side of the coin of life. If we are persons who can be taught rather than persons who have made a cylinder for themselves which they maintain even as they stagnate – we will grow in freshness and insight to our last breath.
 
When Christ is our life, we are informed, and we are transformed.
 
Myk Habets observes following Torrance that “Jesus Christ is the Truth who has accommodated himself to humanity in an economic condescension. He is also a man who hears and obeys the Divine Word in his incarnate life. As such he provides for us in his own obedient Sonship, within our human nature, the way whereby we are carried up to knowledge of God the Father – the attainment of true life… those in Christ rise through the Son to true knowledge of and communion with God the Father. This process continues throughout life, for according to Basil and Torrance, it is only in the eschaton that God’s works of creation and redemption will be brought to their ultimate completion.” (1)
 
FIDDLING CLICHES
 
We can be informed about life if we are teachable and observant. We can advance in wisdom, understanding and spirit and life by living oneness with Christ – by which we mean living the eucharist. Or then again, we can be impervious to the reality taking shape around us. Like politicians who fiddle while the nation drowns or burns.
 
(1) Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance. P127.