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.