Going to the Father

The purpose of Christian life is to be in God. Jesus teaches us to remain in God. Being in God happens through Jesus. That is why he is the way, and prepares a ‘place’ for us in God. Jesus is not like a tourist guide or a gate keeper letting us go to God. Perhaps, we imagine that Jesus passes us in if we go to him and acknowledge our belief in him. ‘He’ is the way. His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection hold us in union with him. Christ with us together we have the total Christ. Through a similar life of lifegiving sacrifice we live that way and be in Christ. Then we are sure that he is the way to God, and we have found ourselves in God. The image of the gatekeeper Christ as the way deceives us. That is the folly of politicized 'personal saviour.'

Going to God is a transformation, a transformation into the image of Christ. It happens in our life and attitudes through the work of the Holy Spirit. This transformation also places us fittingly into the body of Christ. Christ with the whole humanity 'go' to the Father. The difficulty here to see Christ like is probably because we are too familiar with the image of the self as an isolated individual. We are not just what we are. We find ourselves seen as someone towards Christ together with the whole of creation.

If the purpose of Christian life is to establish a Christendom where it is an exercise of power, we are losing ourselves by building our power structures in the name of Christ. Often we even risk losing Christ to maintain power and security. We might find ‘salvation’ in powerful governments and superhero kings and prophets, but there we cannot remain. The wind blows and flood comes, and great is the fall.

Liturgy

Liturgy is to involve us in the reality it desires to represent (using symbols, rituals, and the myths that supports them). If this involvement does not happen liturgy has failed. It becomes an idol rather than symbol. One good example is the Eucharist. Eucharist first holds the life, sacrifice and communion of Christ (communion with the father and all of us. secondly it holds all of us, our life, sacrifices, faith, and communion (communion among ourselves and communion with God through Christ). The above two are administered by the community in the coming together, offering, and praying. Here the community gathers together as the body of Christ, and it is Christ who prays and offers sacrifice. We, being in Christ, worship God who is among us his people. Priest is the minister of the sacramental administration of this mystery. We cannot limit these things into a bread and wine ritual. Often our focus goes to the bread as though the whole meaning of Eucharist is focused on the bread. it impoverishes us from our full involvement in the reality we are to participate.