Three days ago, on my birthday, I was touched by all who sent kind messages. But I also found myself immensely grateful, at 74, to have come to know Jesus and to be a Christian.
I know terrible things have been and are done in His Name for, created in the image of God, once that image begins to become corrupted it can become very dark and life-denying. Yet as I look at Him, I realise that He invites us into a way of life far richer than anything offered by our consumerist society. The early Christian writer, St. Paul, put his finger on it when he talked about being called to ‘knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.’ That ‘knowledge’ isn’t just about something that happens in the head but in the heart of who I am, and we are. And as I look at what’s happening in our world, once I listen beneath the corruptions of Christianity spouted by some for their own ends I begin to wonder – who else but Christ can show us what it really means to be human? He realised the way our humanity can become perverted and pointed us to what we can become - and he showed the way. Shows me that suffering can be overcome, sin redeemed, and death is not the end. Shows me that ‘blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’
As
I wrote in 'The Mystery of Faith':
'Being
a Christian is to be on a journey, a pilgrimage, which like Abram in the Old
Testament (Genesis 12) involves saying that ‘yes’ to something or someone who
invites us to step out from the confines of our known world into a new world
where we are gazed on with the eyes of Love. It’s a way walked by saints, known
and unknown, who journey with us and whose prayers aid us. We begin where we
begin and gradually set our sight on what has been called the heavenly City,
the ‘New Jerusalem’, which is above and beyond us.' (xviii)
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