Who is Christ... for us? 3. Christ and us

Again we might begin by citing a variety of brief texts that provide an avenue into our theme: Mark 1.16; Mark 8.34; John 17.1; Acts 2.38; Romans 6.4 and Galatians 2.20. 

According to the Gospels, calling disciples was a characteristic activity of Jesus from the beginning of his public ministry.  At Caesarea Philippi, however, the stakes are raised as he begins to call his disciples all over again.  Here 'taking up the cross' indicates that the way of discipleship is also the way of sacrifice.  From these texts we discover that Jesus of Nazareth called people to follow him.  As Christains we believe that the risen Christ still calls us to follow him.

In our third text, Jesus' prayer for his disciples (and for the Chuch that was to follow them) is deeply profound.  Jesus prays for the unity of his disciples and his Church, 'that they ay be one as we are one.'   He seeks a unity for them as close and fundamentsal as the unity between the Father and the Son.  Later in the same prayer, he asks 'that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, may they be perfectly one.'  Here we are cnfronted by a deep mystery.  Last Sunday, one of our texts declared, 'God was in Christ;' this text lays down that Christ is in his Church.

That the pattern of call continued from Jesus' own ministry into the ministry of the Church is indicated by Peter's Pentecost sermon (as well as many other texts from Acts and the New Testament letters). 

Again we might begin by citing a variety of brief texts that provide an avenue into our theme: Mark 1.16; Mark 8.34; John 17.1; Acts 2.38; Romans 6.4 and Galatians 2.20. 

According to the Gospels, calling disciples was a characteristic activity of Jesus from the beginning of his public ministry.  At Caesarea Philippi, however, the stakes are raised as he begins to call his disciples all over again.  Here 'taking up the cross' indicates that the way of discipleship is also the way of sacrifice.  From these texts we discover that Jesus of Nazareth called people to follow him.  As Christains we believe that the risen Christ still calls us to follow him.

In our third text, Jesus' prayer for his disciples (and for the Chuch that was to follow them) is deeply profound.  Jesus prays for the unity of his disciples and his Church, 'that they ay be one as we are one.'   He seeks a unity for them as close and fundamentsal as the unity between the Father and the Son.  Later in the same prayer, he asks 'that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, may they be perfectly one.'  Here we are cnfronted by a deep mystery.  Last Sunday, one of our texts declared, 'God was in Christ;' this text lays down that Christ is in his Church.

That the pattern of call continued from Jesus' own ministry into the ministry of the Church is indicated by Peter's Pentecost sermon (as well as many other texts from Acts and the New Testament letters). 

Paul develops further the doctrine that the believer is ‘in Christ’. Peter demands that his hearers ‘repent’ and are baptised ‘in the name of Jesus of Nazareth’. But Paul, in his teaching on baptism, places a deeper emphasis upon the participation of the believer. He speaks of baptism as a sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ. In the NT the meaning of baptism is stated in several ways. Yet this is the meaning that we perhaps find most compelling, for it so emphasises our identification with Christ and our sharing in all his works. And this metaphor is found not only in Paul’s letter to the Romans, but it is restated in Colossians as well (2.12).