By Chaden Hani

Lately, I have come to understand the way members of other religions often appreciate the Christian narrative here in Lebanon. What I came to perceive was a sense of jealousy regarding it, a feeling of protection and even reverence concerning the true value of the Biblical story.

We Christians often concentrate knowingly on the limited fact that Christ bore our sins upon the cross. Indeed! He did. But a deeper reading of this action goes beyond the forgiveness of sin to the fact that Christ’s incarnation, life, teachings and miracles, death, resurrection and ascension made possible the salvation of fallen humanity and paved the way for an authentic relationship, a sincere communion to develop between God and his human creation. What we could not achieve on our own, He did for us. We could never reach God, so He came to us, as us, for us, and on the same terms as us, to lift us up to Him. It is true that details in the scriptures are important for us so that we can relate to the stories from our own understanding. For example, when we narrate the story of Creation, we often talk about the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. But, this is not simply a story about the eating of fruit from the tree, or even about disobedience, but about our unhealthy desires standing in relational contradiction to the virtues God grants us in His Image. Jesus manifested these virtues, directing them in line with the will of and for the glory of God the Father. Our desires should align with such virtues, seeking to reveal the beauty, goodness and wisdom found in the glory of God – not the “self” as Adam had done.

Furthermore, Jesus said to Peter, “On this Rock I will build my Church” (Matt 16:16), after Peter had proclaimed to him, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” However, the implications of Christ’s statement are that the followers of Christ must go forth and preach the Gospel to all the world, as happened after the Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost causing all to speak in multiple languages (Acts 1). Here, the Apostles began their mission and witness.

We are to preach the Gospel as Paul commands in 1 Corinthians 9:20-22:

And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews […] To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all Men, that I might by all means save some.

Becoming weak, becoming like the other, is what Jesus did. Paul followed his lead, seeking to win others to the true knowledge of God. So, if we do not realize what Jesus intended the church to be then we are merely hanging on to a shallow understanding of church life, that of simply hosting believers, and losing sight of our true mission in the world. The church is not static but a body moving continuously towards the other, a body whose virtues are in alignment with its desires. It represents God’s presence in the world, grace for those lost in a web of illusions and manmade dogmas keeping them separate from the loving God. A healthy church is a church which is incarnate for the sake of reaching the other. It does not exist solely for its own, for people who know God and are already on their path toward Him.

As part of IMES’ Peacebuilding Initiatives, we are intentionally attempting to create awareness that the Church represents the arms of God. As the Church, we must extend our arms beyond ourselves to join with the arms of the other, within his or her context and in line with his or her perceptions, as we bring about an awareness of the values and virtues that all persons created in the image of God should share as we work toward the common good of our nation.

IMES operates several peacebuilding programs that focus primarily on bringing together in dialogue the diverse components of our mixed society. Through the Forum for Current Affairs, however, we hope to catalyze the Church in the exploration of new grounds where we can tackle contemporary issues confronting our communities and discern a Biblical, Christ-centered response. Recently, we hosted a gathering of political representatives intended to offer the Church and its members insights on biblical perceptions towards politics and their practical implications. Politics rules our world, but if we retreat amongst ourselves and refuse to engage politics and politicians then we should seriously think about how we would answer Jesus and Paul for choosing a different path than that which they took! And, we will lose any possible impact on the decision-makers in our countries.

From this angle, some scholars provided us a historical overview of the role of the Church in relating to politics and presented criteria we should use as citizens of the Kingdom in making our electoral decisions. There must be an awareness in our community that we ourselves represent the answer to corruption, to injustice, to the lack of peace in the world, the world into which Christ became incarnate, made Himself nothing, humbled Himself to the likeness of Man, and surrendered Himself willingly to death before rising again. In this, He provides for us the deeper sense that we, in our faithful and self-sacrificial service, represent the hope and resurrection of the world. These events and their meanings should always be present in our minds. Jesus redeemed the world. And, touching on political issues allows us to play a role in redeeming the very origins of corruption in our world, which began when Adam first participated in the deeply “political” act of defying the sovereign authority of God. We can therefore live in a world that values the virtues God grants us through His Image, in a deeper meaning of reality.

Ultimately, in reflecting on others’ perceptions of the Biblical story I see that Lord Jesus Christ is more than our words and titles for Him, greater than the stories we tell. When language and words lose their meanings, we begin to comprehend our Trinitarian God.