'Behold the Man' is a very personalised account of the life of Jesus, and of what I understand it to mean to be a follower of his today.
It is not primarily written for convinced Christians, but rather for thoughtful non-Christians, including those of other faiths and none.
Some years ago I had an interesting conversation with a sceptic. He emphatically agreed with me when I acknowledged that you could never prove the resurrection of Jesus.
"But what I think you can reasonably say", I continued, "is that the early Christians believed it. So that here you had a group of people trying to express what was beyond their comprehension."
The first records we have of the life of Jesus are the epistles of Paul, who was writing within a few years of the crucifixion. As a non-observer of the events, like also the gospel writers, he was dependent for his information on the recollections of those who had known and listened to Jesus.
He first went away by himself for three years to think and pray about the significance of what he had learnt.
In 'Ending in Hope' here I write:
'our faith is finally neither in prayer nor in Scripture, but in the God of both and in his faithfulness. Perhaps only those who believe in an all-knowing providential God .. can dare to believe that God can use even their weakness and misunderstanding for his purpose.'
For faith, like God, dwells in mystery.
13th September 2020
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Behold The Man*
SpiritualThis is mainly a five part idiosyncratic reflection on the life of Jesus of Nazareth; someone whom many people with little time for religion still find attractive. It is mostly from a talk I gave in 1988 while visiting a church in Pennsylvania. Plea...
