Reflections on Hebrews with Andrew Murray (4)

 

As Murray moves toward the conclusion to his preface to The Holiest of All:

 

“In offering these meditations…I do so with the prayer that it may please God to use them to inspire some of His children with a new confidence in the blessed Lord, as they learn to know Him better and give themselves up to and expect and experience all that He is able to do for them. I have not been afraid of continually repeating the one thought: Our one need is, to know Jesus better; the one cure for all our feebleness, to look to Him on the throne of heaven, and really claim the heavenly life He waits to impart.” Andrew Murray.

 

Read in the 21^st century, this seems a bit simplistic and naive. Murray certainly couldn’t write those unsophisticated words today and be taken seriously. Could he?

 

Consider the idea of giving ourselves up to Christ – how often do we hear that today? The idea of denying ourselves and following Jesus, of offering ourselves as “living sacrifices” (Mark 8; Romans 12), is probably not something most of us often hear.

 

What about the idea that we should, as we offer ourselves, do so in expectation that we will experience all that our heavenly Priest is able to do for us? Do we act as if our Lord Jesus grudgingly dispenses His promises to us? In spite of the fact that we are assured by our Lord Jesus that it our Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom, and that all  of the promises of God, in Christ, are a resounding “Amen!” to us?

 

What does Murray mean by “feebleness”? While he may explain this in the pages to come, there are likely many dimensions to the answer. The baseline could be the chasm between us and the image of Jesus Christ, individually (Romans 8:29) and collectively (Ephesians 4:11 – 16) – a chasm for which, in light of the Person and work of Jesus Christ, there is no excuse.

 

Friends, we can either look to our excuses for anemic lives, including congregational lives, or we can look to Jesus and His all – sufficiency for transformation into His glorious image. Excuses do not justify us. Confessions that we are still, at heart, Egyptians do not justify us. Only Jesus Christ both justifies and transforms us – for in Christ we share in the life of the Trinity, a Life which has destroyed sin and death through the Incarnation (in Christ we participate in the working out, the manifestation, of this dual destruction as the Incarnation continues in us, His Body).

 

This idea of “feebleness” encompasses all areas of life which have yet to be brought into submission to Jesus Christ, and which have yet to experience the power and life of Jesus Christ. This includes marriage and family, community relationships, local congregations, education, social policy, national policy, economic policy, relations among tribes and races and ethnic groups, sin in all of its myriad forms. I write the foregoing with confidence because Murray’s life touched all of these elements of life – Murray loved Christ and he loved people and he saw life as holistically in Jesus Christ. His love and practical concern for others did not stop at the church doors, it encompassed southern Africa and beyond.

 

Today, most Christians, at least in the West, simply do not believe that the “one cure” for our feebleness is Jesus Christ. We either think that there is no cure, and that the best we can do is to rationalize away the chasm between the life that Christ promises in the Bible and our own lives; or we believe that the cure lies in some form of therapy – which is not really a cure but more of a maintenance regimen.

 

For sure therapy can take many forms and is not limited to professional therapy (and this is not to say that we don’t need those trained in social sciences!). Usually therapy simply takes popular forms of self–help, self–focus, and entertaining ourselves – whether within or without the church. Preaching and teaching that is all about “us” and “me” is therapy. Singing with a center of gravity on “us” is therapy. Many small groups are forms of therapy – their focus is not Christ but on ourselves. It is in the light of our current thinking and practices that Murray’s words seem out-of-place and unrealistic.

 

But consider, if God in Person is not the transformative help and healing that we need – then what does this say about God? What does this say about Divinity? What does this say about our relationship with Divinity? Do we honestly believe that if Christ is actually in our lives, if He is living within us, that He is insufficient and unable to transform our marriages, our families, our churches, and to affect our communities? I am not writing about some kind of mental or creedal assent; I am writing about the reality of life in the Resurrected Jesus Christ – I am writing about supernatural and transformative life in Jesus Christ. Is this life a myth or a reality?

 

Then we have, “I have not been afraid of continually repeating the one thought: Our one need is, to know Jesus better…”  Why would Murray write, “I have not been afraid…”?

 

In Murray’s day, (and I think even more so in our day), this idea that our “one need, is to know Jesus better,” could be viewed as simplistic – it certainly doesn’t appeal to our pride and intellect and our self-righteousness. It is frankly foolishness; but it is the foolishness of God (1 Corinthians 1:18 – 31).

 

If you are a pastor, would people come to hear you if they heard this every week? If you are a member of a congregation, would you participate in a church in which your pastor and teachers emphasized this every week? If you read “Christian” books, or watch or listen to Christian programming, would you purchase books (if you could find them) with this emphasis, or watch or listen to programming with this continual emphasis? And what about popular Christian music – how much of it carries this message?

If you are in Christian academia, is this the thrust of your college or seminary? Is this what you and your colleagues, or fellow students, desire and speak of? Is this the proper subject of a thesis or dissertation?

 

If you are a Christian counsellor, or teaching others in Christian counselling, is this the center of gravity of your practice? If you are involved in pastoral counseling, I ask the same question.

 

Perhaps it takes more courage to speak of Jesus as our “one need” within the professing – church, than it does outside the church.

 

Are we “looking unto Jesus”? Is Jesus Christ our all in all?” Do we really believe that our “one need” is to know Jesus Christ?