The Mystery of Christian Witness

Witnessing to Jesus Christ means being a meaningful misfit; an intentionally marginal person; someone made unconventional by a commitment to the one odd god/man of truth, freedom, love, and vitality; a person committed to sharing the light, love, and life of Jesus with others without conditions.

Under the pressure of today's Global Technological System, all societies and cultures are conventional. They all define themselves in terms of the six conventional Olympian gods of politics, war, technology, sex, money, and consumption. Almost all people are also conventional almost all the time. Almost all of us define ourselves in terms of these gods of power.

This is strange because Jesus was, is, and will always be the source, norm, and goal of every person's life. The six false but conventional gods of power weren’t, aren’t, and never will be.

So the question is: why do almost all people, throughout history, wrongly devote themselves to the six false but conventional gods of power rather than to Jesus?

The fault does not lie with Jesus. Every day, Jesus shares words of his truth and signs of his presence with each person without conditions. Through these gracious words and signs, Jesus invites and empowers each of us to respond to him with gratitude. In gratitude to him, he also invites and empowers each of us to share his light, love, and light with others, without conditions, just as he does.

The merit does not lie with us. By nature, all of us devote ourselves to the six conventional gods of power. Only by grace, the unmerited favor of Jesus, do any of us discern the truth, affirm the freedom, share the love, and enjoy the vitality he gives us. Truth, freedom, love, and vitality are always his gifts. We never earn them, possess them, or enjoy them because of any superior virtue of our own.

So, at any given time in any given place, why do only a handful of people bother to intentionally witness to Jesus? It’s a mystery.

Because it will remain a mystery, we have no grounds, as those called and enabled by Jesus to live as his witnesses, for looking down upon others for remaining conventionally devoted to the gods. Instead, we may keep our grateful focus on a gracious lord who gives us all the light, love, and life we can bear and enables us to graciously share them with our many Olympian neighbors anyway.

Copyright © 2012 by Steven Farsaci.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.