22 November

Dear friends,

This Sunday brings us to the final service of the church year. In just a week we step into Advent, the beginning of a new lectionary cycle. If we take the rhythm of the church year seriously, it means we have spent twelve months shaped by the life of Christ. We have waited for his coming, celebrated his birth, listened for epiphany, walked with him through the desert, witnessed his suffering, death, and resurrection, and attended to his daily teachings.

This leads naturally to a simple question: how have you grown in Christlikeness this year? 

The earliest believers were not called Christians. They were known simply as followers of the way. As followers of the way, we attend to the one who leads us. Paul reminds the church that all things hold together in Christ, for he is its head. The church year is meant to bring us back to this centre over and over again. The way we think of Jesus shapes the way we think of the church. Tom Smith puts it well: “Church is the accidental byproduct of people relating to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. As we crash into Jesus, a kingdom explosion takes place.” But it is entirely possible to be a church without Jesus, to let programmes, buildings or attendance among other things take the central place that belongs to Christ.

Smith quotes Henri Nouwen in a way that takes together much of this. Nouwen writes, “If you were to ask me point blank: ‘What does it mean to live spiritually?’ I would have to reply, ‘Living with Jesus at the centre.’ There are always countless questions, problems, discussions, and difficulties that demand one’s attention. Despite this, when I look back over the last thirty years of my life, I can say that, for me, the person of Jesus has come to be more and more important. Specifically, this means that what matters increasingly is getting to know Jesus and living in solidarity with him. There was a time when I got so immersed in problems of church and society that my whole life had become a sort of drawn-out, wearisome discussion. Jesus had been pushed into the background or had himself become just another problem. Fortunately, it has not stayed that way. Jesus has stepped out front again, so to speak, and asked me, ‘And you, who do you say that I am?’ It has become clearer to me than ever that my relationship with Jesus is the heart of my existence.”

As we approach a new year in the life of the church, I look forward to journeying with this community once again, keeping Christ at the centre of all that we are and all that we hope to become.

 Marius Louw