Faith Venture

We have now traveled through Advent. We have celebrated the birth of Jesus.

Now what?

Reading the “Christmas Stories” again for the hundredth time, something sank into my consciousness. There were just two predictions–Jesus would be filled with the presence of God; Jesus would be a new (and last) King (Hebrew Messiah, English Anointed One, Greek Christos).

Jesus message was in the basic form “repent and enter the Kingdom of God.”

And if we read carefully, we see that God’s Kingdom (where Jesus is King) totally upends the Roman way. And the way of probably every king before or since.

Rome was all about power. Ruthless. Bloodthirsty. Like Herod having every male child under two years old in Bethlehem killed so that the new King of the Jews told to him by the Magi would not live to take his (Herod’s) place. Like the way the Romans dealt with Jerusalem and the Jews around AD 70.

Jesus kingdom:

• The leader must be a servant
• The culture was love, not power
• All are the same (see Paul–there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, and so forth)
• People are healed, not destroyed
• People’s lives are turned around, no longer sinners, but free

When we sign on to follow, it isn’t just to say a prayer and feel good…for a while. It is to enter the new kingdom and live a new life.

Starting now.

Hence, one of my favorite old folk songs

I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back

This entry was posted on December 26, 2022 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.