Having been away from a local congregation of people-identified-as-church for a while, one of my online homes is making some changes to the way it will be doing things. Nothing terrible: I’m not an endangered species.
Their concern is to be Christ centred. What do they mean by that? What do I mean by that?
There’s the obvious, that thing that was tradition in the congregations I was part of before now. That Christ-centred means the Jesus, and most particularly, the Jesus Christ on the cross. That’s a nice understanding of the concept, but incomplete.
If I’m right, the term Christ comes from Hebrew wording meaning something like ‘The Anointed One’. In David’s day, David was (and Saul too) the anointed one. In that tradition, we’re reminded there’s more to Christology than Jesus of Nazareth. (Excuse me if I’m teaching you to suck eggs…)
But that’s not all of the picture. In my present faith and practice, I hope to be inclusive and learn from other traditions thab my own. I think that, were I to try and start a list of the notable Christs I can think of, Adam, Noah, Abram/Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Asaph, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others make the list. Those are just from the Old Testament. There are others in the New Testament.
I’ll go one further, though: there are Christs outside the christian tradition and canon. There are many who appreciate the writings aabout Buddha from that tradition and say that they are comparable. Mohandas Ghandi (who earned himself an equivalent title to ‘Christ’ in ‘Mahatma’), the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him, who was revered by contemporaneous christians as a prophet) and others suggest themselves.
That said, I doubt that there are as many visible christs as hidden ones. Those who do the sound at your local [congregation], the team that made tea for years, the person who takes the time to visit the sick when they get ill, or those people who set out the chairs. These guys seem like christs to me.
Hang on, we’ve got to be careful at this point: while inventing new language, these words are comparable to the attitude that other branches in the body of christ take to those that they venerate. They recognise those whose lives have clearly been holy, and set them up as models of attitude or behaviour to be copied. We may end up doing the same, and I’d recommend not taking one’s attitudes and position too seriously in this.
Catchya later: I’m off to do some reading about people in order to enhance my knowledge of the Christs who walked the earth in years past.
Take care. love Ken.
clarifying christ
El_keninho said: If I’m right, the term Christ … start a list of the notable Christs I can think of, Adam, Noah, Abram/Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Asaph, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others make the list. Those are just from the Old Testament. There are others in the New Testament.
You’re correct about what Christ translates from in the Hebrew. However, to keep the Hebrew meaning, you will have to shorten your list of ‘annointed ones.” The annointing meant to be smeared with oil and was specifically used to indicate the one chosen specially by YHWH to be king or priest. The announcement that YHWH had chosen so and so was usually, as far as I can tell, by a prophet. Therefore, most of the Hebrew people you have listed as christs actually are not, in a Hebrew sense, that at all. Most of them were prophets.
Jesus was the annointed one by god as indicated at his baptism, by the declaration of John and the voice from heaven. No oil is indicated as being present, but the gospel writers seem to think that it is the god-givennes, and not the rite of annointing, that says who is the new king.
Paul saw that since Jesus is the annointed one, and perpeutually so by virtue of his resurrection, those who follow this king are IN him. Those who believe have the annointing of the holy Spirit and are, in that sense, little christs (Christians).
Biblically speaking, I would not call Abraham, nor Mohammed, a christ, and certainly not some metro-spiritual person outside of the Christ with a capital ‘C”. There is much to be learned from other traditions about truth and approaches to truly human lifestyles, but those who do not have the holy Spirit are not ‘christs.’ The Christian soundman on Sunday morning, absolutely, in the Pauline sense. But not someone who is not in Christ, no matter how true or sublime what s/he teaches or does may be.
Sorry for the preach—I’m a semantic freak, and in a dialogue I like to keep word-meanings clear.
tchau