Monday, May 25, 2009

Inspired Faith

I, like many people, tend to struggle with this thing called faith. I think that that can be a good thing. Yet I keep coming back to the thing that many times has hurt or lessened my faith and that is the church. I have come to realize that there are very few in the church that do and say things that hurt. For the most part, we are all good people who struggle with the mundane everyday activities of life and it is that struggle within itself that brings us together. It has been the few but powerful that have caused so much damage. And the same can be said today, both from within and without the church.

For the last several months my struggle has been deeper that at times in the past. I have been asking the "Why?" question a lot. I still don't have the answer. But for some strange reason, in spite of the doubts, my faith in Him has become stronger. I don't understand all the ins and outs theologically but my faith in Him has grown. It seems that the one that we call Jesus is under constant attack in the academic world. Was he really who he claimed to be? Or did he ever claim to be who we say he is? Can we trust a book as reliable that apparently has inconsistencies? On a recent trip to Chicago I had the opportunity to visit the Chicago Art Institute. The first part of the exhibit that I viewed was the section on what I call religious art. I don't know the correct name. The art was amazing. Hundreds of years old. Artists who invariably protrayed this one I called Jesus as the son of the virgin Mary but who was also the son of God. I saw portrayals of the last supper, the denial of Peter, the betrayal of Judas and the crucifixion of Jesus. I was awed, not so much by the beauty of the paintings but the history of hundreds of years that told a story of people much like me, a people who may not know all the ins and outs of theology but who believed in this one called Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the Holy one of God. I walked in amazement and renewed faith. A faith renewed not by words on a page but words that had been put on canvas. The words were not even there but yet they were so powerful. The words that spoke, "believe in me."

I have been pondering these thoughts for several days and yesterday during communion my thoughts drifted back to those paintings. I saw my Savior in those paintings. I saw his love and the love of those who painted those pictures. I saw the love of one that has transcended hundreds of years but yet a love that still changes countless lives. Yes, all the same imperfections are present in God's people today. Yes, there are still the lingering theological questions but to me history and yes even these paintings suggest that there was one who was called Jesus who lived among men and suffered a very cruel death on the cross and who was indeed raised on the third day as the Christ. Why else would men and women through history follow one so, unless just maybe there was something to who he was-The holy one of God.