Do we think he is dead or alive?
In his book “Living Jesus” Luke Timothy Johnson declares:
The most important question concerning Jesus, then, is simply this: Do we think he is dead or alive?
If Jesus is simply dead, there are any number of ways we can relate ourselves to his life and his accomplishments. And we might even, if some obscure bit of data should turn up, hope to learn more about him. But we cannot reasonably expect to learn more from him.
If he is alive, however, everything changes. It is no longer a matter of our questioning an historical record, but a matter of our being put in question by one who has broken every rule of ordinary human existence.
If Jesus lives, then it must be as life-giver. Jesus is not simply a figure of the past in that case, but a person in the present; not merely a memory we can analyze and manipulate, but an agent who can confront and instruct us.
What we can learn about him must therefore include what we continue to learn from him.
Thanks to Luke Timothy Johnson for sharing. Thanks to Unsplash and Ave Calvar for the picture.
On a scale of 1-10, how alive is Jesus in YOUR life?
I BELIEVE IN JESUS, LIKE I BELIEVE IN THE SUN – NOT BECAUSE I CAN SEE IT, BUT BY IT….I CAN SEE EVERYTHING ELSE!
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