Jesus Encounters

Recently, I met a man from Syria who had only a short time ago come to faith in Jesus Christ. In the brief time I had with him, he shared how he had encountered the Saviour.

But let me first ask: `Have you ever noticed that in most if not all of the Bible’s accounts of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, the Risen Lord, that his disciples failed to recognize Him?! They had spent hours, days, months with Him – sharing fully in His life, as companions and followers along the roads of Galilee, Samaria, Judea, and into Jerusalem. But they didn’t recognize Him as He appeared before them.

I think you could argue that He ‘came and went’ time again to the disciples (as St. Paul puts it - appearing to as many as 500 at one time, on occasion). The same Paul comments that ‘from now on, we do not know Him ‘according to the flesh.’ Somehow, Jesus’ new, resurrected Body remains the same and yet is somehow different. For Him, the seed has already flowered; He is in a resurrection, spiritual body – though one still corporeal (and we too shall one day be ‘like Him’ having bodies like `His glorious Body”).

Jesus appeared and disappeared in those days between his Resurrection and Ascension – seemingly moving through doors and walls without limitation – no doubt moving through and beyond various dimensions of space/time of the created order - and beyond and into whatever the ‘eternal’ means . . .

There follows the Ascension experience of Christ, before His disciples, as they see Him disappear into the clouds and into the eternal (which may very likely be not all that far away – just of another dimension and order of things). He had disappeared several times from their sight, but this time He would disappear for the most part or more fully from their natural and physical embrace and encounter, at least as they had previously been privileged to experience Him. But His presence was nonetheless real, now to be possible through a new communication of ‘spirit’ – to be theirs with and through His (Holy Spirit).

Paul Himself had a vision – a kind of appearing, of Jesus to him, on the Damascus Road (Damascus being then as now in Syria). I wonder if or how many others had a similar experience of which the Bible does not speak and of which we do not know. We do know that the early church at worship, in the height of both knowledge and passion, and in the liturgical expressions – some ancient and some new to Judaism and to this new ‘sect’ – looked forward to corporately ‘discerning the body’ in the tangible elements and expressions – the symbols of reality in the taking and eating and drinking of the Bread and of the Cup (of Communion), as Jesus had commanded them. And in that context they would cry – ‘Maranatha’ (Aramaic for: ‘Come Lord (Jesus)). They had a deep sense of His reality and of His Presence as they gathered and welcomed and worshiped. It was by faith they embraced Him, but it was a real encounter, nonetheless.

But again, I wonder if sometimes Jesus actually showed Himself to such as them at worship, as a vision of manifest and even corporal presence.

Back to my Syrian friend. An Islamic fundamentalist and an ex El Quaeda operative, his life would be forfeit now if he should return to his homeland – in danger of being killed by members of his own family and certainly by the hands of his former associates. He came to faith, he told me, because without thinking or solicitation or any other intermediary of which he was aware, Jesus had appeared to him. He was certain that it was Jesus and the encounter started him on a journey that led to Christian companionship, an introduction to the Scriptures and to a clear embrace and statement of faith, as he became a follower of this Jesus.

I wonder how many other times in our lives Jesus is near – to be apprehended by faith, or by sheer sight (though this is rare and not to be expected or sought). Other friends in that context have indicated to me that though the man’s vision was wonderful, it is also perhaps a rebuke to them and to all Christians that where we fail to do our task of showing and telling the Good News to others, Jesus does it for us, in spite of us, around us. Indeed, beyond arguing Islamic people into Christian understanding and faith, it may well be that such ‘signs and wonders’ will be used by the Lord, especially in areas we dare not go or even where we have friends and neighbours that we fail to reach.

For the Church?

How is this new clan and community - called the Church, to be part of God's answer, in Christ?

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything FOR THE CHURCH, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

- Ephesians 1:17 - 23

Witness to Clan and Family

How to share faith when one is among clans and tribes - and not mere 'individuals?'

It is vital to think deeply about these realities and to try to do Missiology - i.e. to missionally assess implications for Gospel witness. It is necessary to do Christology - to think through the reasons for which Jesus came, in fulfilment of the Missio Dei (the Mission of God) and how He will ultimately overcome (made possible by His Person and Work - His life, death and resurrection). It is essential too, to do Ecclessiology - to see how the Church, the Body of Christ-followers are part of God’s plan, the answer (cf. Ephesians 1) for how all of this is going to get done.

The following is true of rural communities, in the West still, for reflecting on tribalism in the recent political chaos and mess of Kenya, or in the upheaval and division that Lebanon reflects (as mirror for internal Arab conflict - with each other, with Israel, and with the West).

Can thinking about mission context(s) such as the following not help us understand our mission challenges and responsibilities in the West and in the whole world (?) - mandated as we are to preach the gospel to every creature under heaven and to make disciples throughout the whole of the cosmos.

As with most of our own fore-bearers in various times and places, with their own unique challenges, locales and hurtles to overcome for survival and establishment, “the overwhelming need for security led the Bedouin of centuries ago to gather in patrilineal families locked in steadfast fidelity and absolute obligation to one another.

In the brutal, open desert (one could put cold, Canadian winters in our context) where survival depended on numbers and cohesion, each tent represented a family, each encampment constituted a clan, and several clans linked together through descent from a common ancestor became a tribe. Within these protective walls of kinships, father and son, brother and brother, cousin and cousin searched for pasture, camped together, married first cousins to first cousins, and defended each other and their collective honour.

Within the group, cohesion held because overpowering cultural and social pressures instilled within each individual the supreme and unquestioned value of life - the commitment to family solidarity and the assumption of mutual responsibility. In these family in which every person knew every other person, in which all were related by blood, or at least by a fiction of common descent, the imperative of the collective good of the family passed from generation to generation. Near-absolute necessity guaranteed enforcement . . .

Each individual, in both emotional and practical terms, surrendered his or her identity to the family. And like the rest of the family, these individuals distrusted and largely disliked those outside the boundaries of kinship.

The definition of family in Arab culture is not nuclear or even extended. . . A first cousin is like a brother and a distant cousin is an integral part of the total family, regardless of gaps in wealth, education, and social status. This potent sense of family has cast societies into an amalgam of primordial allegiances governed by the most Arab of all utterances: “My brother and I against my cousin, and my cousin and I against the alien.” (cf. Sharon Mackey, "Mirror of the Arab World: Lebanon in Conflict")

Love and Hate

Loving ourselves at the expense of loving others is contrary to the heart of the Gospel. Jesus calls us and enables us (only by His very Spirit living in and through us) to overcome such ego-centric, harsh and selfish attitudes and life-styles.

That's in direct challenge and opposition to clanish, tribal thinking that concludes that whether religion, class or culture - the more one loves one's own, the more one is entitled to hate another.'

For 'hate' put diss, laugh at, mock, scorn, ignore, fight against, scoff at . . . all of which happens between denominations (which are the un-happy product of nation-state times and critical, Cartesian/cognitive/modernistic times) and which also happens when emergents get thinking about liminals (former establishment and institutional 'christendom'), and vice versa.

Jesus is 'The Answer' - How So?

What was it Jesus really came to do - to accomplish, if one thinks of individual needs (guilt and blame against God), and of family, clan, tribe and community alienation?

How does His life and death and resurrection bring Peace and Reconciliation? And why haven't we seen or experienced it much in the last two thousand years. 

Why aren't we experiencing it, promoting, seeing it 'fleshed out' more in our day, in our communities, in our world?! 

Family or Individual?

Does negation of family, clan, tribe and community and pressing towards individual freedom, rights and wants lead to inevitable chaos?

I was raised with familiarity and responsibility due to close proximity to family members. Many rural communities in Ontario remain the same today. Local churches may still reflect this and new pastors need to know they are entering a community of family and relationship that is more than their coming together to build a church and to seek to follow Christ.

The new pastor has entered a tribe, a clan, a community just as cohesive and united as would be entrance into any clan or tribe or community in what you used to be called ‘the mission field,’ overseas.

Within each church there are tribal leaders and intricate relationships. Father, sons and brothers, mother, daughters-in-law, and cousins may still live within tight boundaries of kinship drawn by precise bloodlines.

In Arab or Bedouin cultures there remains deeply ingrained codes of personal honour, the dictates of vengeance, the obligation of hospitality, and the near-sacred dedication to family (see Sandra Mackey: ‘Mirror of the Arab World: Lebanon in Conflict.’

When does mission, evangelism, church life, community impact follow lines of family and clan and tribe, and when not? Does one leave one family and tribe (or is the former life in community trumped) by entrance into the new Family of God, the Church? Is this part of what Jesus is saying when he tells us that one’s enemies (when one comes to faith) may be those of his own household, and that if we don’t ‘hate’ father, mother, sister and brother (at least relatively speaking), in following Him, that we cannot be His disciple.

But does the individual faith, and seeker-driven service draw one into a new family in Christ, in new relationships, responsibilities, allegiances and loyalties? Or, has modern Western society simply replaced the old allegiances (rural values, family life and living in small town (even urban ‘pocket’s’) community - not for something better (at least as provided for and reinforced in new church community) but for individual tyranny and eventual societal chaos?

Does the Gospel Lead Inevitably to Democracy?

Showing and telling the Gospel among people who celebrate tribe and clan (the Arab world, Africa, youth culture) challenges the way in which Christendom, latterly, entered into attempts at evangelism and mission. Having one's own personal relationship with Christ may seem very strange to those cultures where they will come to Christ as a group, if at all, or when the clan-leader embraces the claims of Jesus.

Does the Gospel lead inevitably to democracy (as it has been outlined and embraced in and by the West)? Is making a 'personal decision' for Jesus necessary to salvation (if you confess with your mouth: 'Jesus is Lord . . ' ? - but then become a problem if one doesn't see further how one is to then fit into the Christ's Body, the Church, or become part of God's reclamation-project that touches all people, all relationships, all aspects of life in the cosmos.

Sandra Mackey, writing in ‘Mirror of the Arab World,’ states that: “Unlike the West that glorifies the individual, Arabs define self in personal relationships with others. And it is mutual obligation of one to the other than knits Arab society together. Consequently institutions are inseparable from those who occupy them. In the realm of Arab politics, a person who holds a political or legal position is seldom if ever capable of separating himself from his relationships within his family, community, or web of indebtedness in order to exercise an impersonal, institutional role. To the officeholder as well as those he represents, any act of independence is the equivalent of splitting the social atom, risking the release of unknown and uncontrollable forces that threaten order. Therefore, to most Arabs, it is better to live in tyranny than risk chaos.”