Notes from a Sojourn
April 30, 2020
The Mind of Christ In You
“This is why we pay attention to the saints. It is from the way in which the identity of Jesus finds new and distinctive expression in their individual lives that we gain insight into how we might also translate the mind of Christ into lives that are fully engaged with the specific circumstances in which God has placed us and where the call of God comes to us.”[1]
from Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel by Luke Timothy Johnson.
This week a small group of people from within and outside our parish will begin reading and discussing The Acts of the Apostles, the second volume of Luke the Evangelist’s historical narration of Christianity’s beginnings. As it turns out, the actions of these first Christian apostles are much like the acts of Jesus in volume one (the Gospel of Luke)! The overarching shape of Luke’s narration of Christian history consistently underscores how the Spirit of God that is in Jesus Christ is now at work in the lives of his believers: the ‘mind of Christ’ is “replicable in the freedom of other humans through the power of the Holy Spirit.” [2]
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the work of God in human freedom does not stop with Jesus but continues in us! Through faith in the Living Jesus – the Son of God who became for us a Son of Man to author a way of salvation through our human freedom – how can we translate the ‘mind of Christ’ into the life of a parish that is “fully engaged with the specific circumstances in which God has placed us and where the call of God comes to us”?
Colin+
[1] Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus, 203.
[2] Johnson, Living Jesus, 199-200.
