I am working my way through an exciting book right now, The Crucifixion of Ministry, by Andrew Purves.* A member of the clergy covenant group that I participate in recommended the book to our group. It is a powerful, exhilarating book that calls pastors, and all followers of Christ, to be centered in Christ and focused on Christ. To be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—remember that is the call upon every baptized Christian’s life—we must never forget that it is Christ’s ministry not ours. Our job is not so much to do ministry as it is to join Christ in what He is already doing. Christian ministry begins, happens and ends by, through and in Christ.
We live in a world of two primary competing worldviews: one of postmodernist relativism, which says something like “Leave me alone with my truth;” and those “grasping at absolutes and even killing for them”(p.32). Purves points out another option, that we do not have to go around thinking there are no absolutes nor trying to choose between truths. Suppose it is not a question of “which” or “what” but “who.” “What if at its heart truth is about a relationship with a person before
subscription to an idea?”
“If priority is given to the ‘Who?’ question, it is appropriate and even necessary to ask, What then is the truth’s name? We should not merely ask, ‘In what do I believe?’ Instead we should ask, ‘In whom do I believe?’…Because Christians understand truth specifically in terms of the name—that is, person—of Jesus, truth is about a person and relationship with that person.”(p.33) (Cf. John 14:6).
A shocking, amazing,
astounding thing about this person Jesus is that he is not just a person. He is in fact God. In a day when virtually our entire educational process and the continual bombardment through the various media claims that empirical data, science, and journalists are the presenters of truth. It is very radical to claim that truth is a person; moreover that this person is more than just a person, that He is God. “St. Athanasius of Alexandria in the 360’s…said that not only was God in Christ, not only did God work through Christ, but God came as the man Jesus. God as the man Jesus. That is the staggering immensity of what we are considering” (p.41).
In the Letter to the Colossians, there are powerful statements about the mind-blowing reality that Jesus is the Christ, that He was God in the flesh, fully God and fully human. Jesus is “the way, truth and the life” (Jn.14:6), and “there is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Purves wrote, “we sometimes hear the rumblings of the silly question, “What’s the big deal about Jesus?”…The answer, of course, is that Jesus is not just a big deal; he’s the whole deal! He’s not a name on a list; he’s the whole list… Everything else in faith, life, and ministry has truth only in relationship to him. All other questions and issues pale into insignificance beside the New Testament’s cosmic and historical claim concerning Jesus.” (p.43).
Jesus was, is and always will be. The God who brought creation into being is still present and active. Our job as followers of Jesus Christ, and thereby children of God, is to watch for what God is doing in our midst and around us, then to join in. To share in ministry and to help make God known are both a great privilege and responsibility. All the while we must remember that it is Christ’s Church and ministry that we participate in, not ours. It is all about Christ and not about us. And we can entrust ourselves to Him because He is the one who laid down His very life for us so that we might have life in Him. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, so may we live: “I am crucified with Christ; therefore I no longer live. Jesus Christ now lives in me.”
