I sadly haven't had much to time to blog or add any more pictures at the moment, due to lesson prep and the fact that my parents are coming to visit this weekend! I finally feel like I am earning the right to go to bed now. Before it just felt like a bit of an extended holiday. But amongst lesson preparation and arranging after-school help it was really refreshing to go along to the CU (SMD) on Wednesday again. It thrilled me to chat about theology in german... the topic for this term is 'Was glaubst du denn wirklich?' 'What do you really believe?', note the stress being on the 'really'! We looked at the Apostles' Creed, the Nicean Creed and the Bramer Erklärung (??), which was knocking around during the time of national socialism. We ended up working in smaller groups, discussing how we would make up a creed or relevant 'statement of faith' that would be particularly good in addressing a multi-cultural/religious society. So, obviously things like stating that Jesus is the only Way to the Father got in there -though how you could leave that out during any epoch I have no idea!
What sort of annoyed me a bit though was that throughout the entire evening no one reached for a Bible. I was a bit astounded that everyone was saying things like 'oh yeah, we need to say that we believe the Bible is the Word of God' and yet no one actually looked inside one for evidence of why we believe what we do! (Don't worry, a sufficient number of fingers were pointing back at me too.)
Interestingly though, the issue of the resurrection came up in our little group. Thus ensued a lengthy discussion as to whether or not it ought to be included in our self-made (and note, key-word only, ok so very hard to do) creed. Erm, yeah. So, there was a bit of talk about whether it was so important that Jesus was raised bodily or not and whether or not we can be sure of that... by not being raised bodily I am guessing they mean figuratively but how on earth you could actually grab that from the gospels beats me. But maybe I am just intellectually thwarted, such is life!
Then came the 'well, do you need to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead in order to be a christian?'. Flicking to Romans 10:9 seemed to clear up, at least, that believing that God raised Christ from the dead is just as much an essential part of the gospel as trusting that Jesus' death was to pay for our sins. Again, because my mind wasn't actually functioning at 100 percent efficiency (that's what having to teach at 7.50am does to you!) I stupidly didn't have any other passages in mind until suddenly on Thursday morning passages like John 11:17-46 came to me; when Jesus raises Lazarus and also claims to be the resurrection and the life. Or, 1 Corinthians 15... such an amazing chapter! Basically, that without Jesus being physically resurrected we have no evidence and certainly no assurance to say that our sins are forgiven, because where is the proof that the price is paid, or even that we have an eternal Mediator between us and God the Father? Plus, we make God out to be a liar and His Word too (note just how many times Paul says 'according to the Scriptures'). We have no reason to believe that we will receive a wonderfully new and stain-free-from-sin body at the judgement day- if of course there even is a judgement day if God the Father, His Word, and His Son too are all liars. And to top it all off, it would make all christians the most pitied people, or at least the people who ought to be pitied the most!
Praise God that Christ is risen then and that it is an essential part of the gospel! Without the resurrection we are completely and utterly lost.
Moving on, my parents are coming to visit this weekend! I can't wait to see them, just to catch up, show them what I've been getting up to and then laugh at how ridiculous communication is going to be between my parents and my flatmate... My Mum can speak a tiny bit of german, Dad can't at all (though he did try learning french) and my flatmate can speak a tiny bit of english. Guess who'll have their work cut out! Sunday at church should be interesting.
Although I turn the (apparently) big 2-1 on Sunday, I keep forgetting that it's going to be my birthday, I think just because I'm not at home or with my usual friends and I've just so been looking forward to seeing my parents. Peter Pan had the right idea I think.
On that note, it's now far too late. I'm not the 'early to bed and early to rise' type, so that probably doesn't make me very wise...
No comments:
Post a Comment