Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:05 — 8.3MB)
Glen Scrivener’s book, The Air We Breathe (2022) compellingly explores ways Christianity has shaped the moral values of the West. It is a book for those who believe and those who don’t know what to believe. It alerts us afresh to the question of God and, if he exists, what he is like.
Of course, there are always those who tell us that there is no God – as did Nietzsche in the 19th century and scientists today like Richard Dawkins – although, interestingly, Dawkins says that he is a ‘cultural Christian’: he appreciates the heritage of Anglican Christianity.
History suggests that the idea of God is embedded in every culture that has existed for longer than three generations. It’s not surprising therefore that even in popular music, questions of God arise. Back in June 1996 the pop singer Joan Osborne came and went with a #1 single, ‘One of Us’. The lyrics asked some good questions: If God had a name, what would it be? If God had a face, what would it look like? In essence it asked the question, ‘What would God be like if he were flesh and blood?’
Hinduism tells us there are many different gods (Shiva, Vishna, and so on); Judaism insists that there is only one. Buddhism denies the notion of God and Islam insists that everything is directed by the will of Allah. So, who’s right? Certainly not all of them. Perhaps none.
It’s this kind of question that makes Joan Osborne’s question so relevant. The only way we can really know what the creator God is like is if he lived as one of us. If he stepped into our shoes for a while we could see him from his birth to the grave. We might be able to find out where he was born and the school he attended. We’d hear of his interests and lifestyle, and perhaps what music he listened to and what social events and pubs he might check out. And we’d see the way he’d treat people – the politicians and the celebrities; the poor and the outcast; or just the average guy on the street like you and me. And if he had to die, we’d see how he would cope with it.
One of the striking things about Christianity is that it is grounded in history. The Gospel writers insist that Jesus of Nazareth not only lived but is unique. He was not just a prophet: he was more than a prophet. He was not just a man, he was God’s Messiah. He was not just an extraordinary man. He was both God and man.
In the hours before his arrest one of Jesus’ friends asked him a question that wasn’t very different from the one in Joan Osborne’s song. In John chapter 14, verse 9 we read Philip’s request: “Lord show us the Father. That’s all we need.”
Philip wanted to know what every religion has always wanted to know: What is God like? He wanted some tangible experience of God that would sweep his doubts away. Perhaps he was thinking of God’s special appearance to Moses in the burning bush. Or maybe he was influenced by the Greek mystery religions and had in mind some inner ecstasy, a spiritual trip that would lift him up to new levels of consciousness. Either way he wanted to see God.
Jesus’ response is electrifying: “He who has seen me has seen the Father…”
We would not have been surprised if Jesus had replied, ‘Don’t be silly Philip. You’re asking the impossible’. Rather he says, ‘Don’t you know me Philip, even after I’ve been among you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’.
Yet there are many who think of Jesus merely as the ultimate good guy or one of history’s great teachers. Both ideas are no doubt true, but neither comes near what he is saying. He is saying that he is not just God’s emissary or ambassador, but God himself. He is claiming to be God in our shoes.
Consider how Jesus continues: ‘Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves’ (John 14:11).
Think about it, Jesus is saying: ‘You’ve seen me turn water into first-class wine; you’ve heard that I cured a young boy at a distance; you’ve seen me heal a man paralysed for 38 years, provide food for thousands at a word, restore sight to a man blind from birth, as well as bring a man dead for four days out of a tomb. Doesn’t that tell you something about me?’
It would have made sense, explaining many extraordinary events over the last three years – how Jesus could out-teach the academics of his day: he knew what he spoke about because he is from God; how Jesus could raise people from the dead, because he is the source of life.
The cumulative impact of Jesus’s life – the signs he performed and his revelatory teaching – exemplifies the truth of the opening lines of John’s Gospel: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men and women … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, … (John 1:1-4, 14).
Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French mathematician, philosopher and physicist, wrote in his Pensées‘: ‘People despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men and women wish it were true, and then show them that it is’.
In the opening lines of Psalm 98 – a psalm that bubbles throughout with praise and joy to the Lord – we are reminded of God’s supernatural intervention in human affairs:
Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made known his salvation…
To rephrase Glenn Scrivener’s words, ‘Is this the air you breathe’?
A prayer. Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth so that they may return into the way of righteousness: grant to all who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s service that we may renounce those things that are contrary to our profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to it; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
© John G. Mason
