The Furious Longing of God: Part Three

Notes from Brennan Manning's 

The Furious Longing of God

[part three]

The Fire of the Gospel

"Jesus Christ has irreparably changed the world. When preached purely, His Word exalts, frightens, shocks, and forces us to reassess our whole life. The gospel breaks our train of thought, shatters our comfortable piety, and cracks open our capsule truths. The flashing spirit of Jesus Christ breaks new paths everywhere. His sentences stand like quivering swords of flame because He did not come to bring peace, but a revolution. The gospel is not a children's fairy tale, but rather a cutting-edge, rolling-thunder, convulsive earthquake in the world of the human spirit. By entering human history, God has demolished all previous conceptions of who God is and what man is supposed to be. We are, suddenly, presented with a God who suffers crucifixion. This is not the God of the philosophers who speak with cool detachment about the Supreme Being. A Supreme Being would never allow spit on His face." [115]

"It is jarring indeed to learn that what He went through in His passion and death is meant for us too; that the invitation He extends is Don't weep for Me! Join Me! The life He has planned for Christians is a life much like He lived. He was not poor that we might be rich. He was not mocked that we might be honored. He was not laughed at so that we would be lauded. On the contrary, He revealed a picture meant to include you and me. 'It makes me happy to be suffering for you now, and in my own body to make up all the hardships that still have to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the church.' (Col. 1:24)." [115-116]

"By extinguishing the spirit that burns in the gospel, we scarcely feel the glow anymore. We have gotten so used to the ultimate Christian fact - Jesus naked, stripped, and crucified - that we no longer see it for what it actually is. We are to strip ourselves of earthly cares and worldly wisdom, all desire for human praise, greediness for any kind of comfort, spiritual consolations included. The gospel is a summons to be stripped of those fine pretenses by which we manage to paint a portrait of ourselves for the admiration of friends." [116-117]

"Because we approach the gospel we preconceived notions of what it should say rather than what it does say, the Word no longer falls like rain on the parched ground of our souls. It no longer sweeps like a wild storm into the corners of our comfortable piety. It no longer vibrates like sharp lightning in the dark recesses of our nonhistoric orthodoxy. The gospel becomes, in the words of Gertrude Stein, ... a pattern of pious platitudes spoken by a Jewish carpenter in the distant past." [117]

"For Christians living in what Oscar Cullman calls 'the isness of the shall be' they lay out the game plan for a radically different lifestyle of constant prayer, total unselfishness, buoyant, creative goodness, and unbridled involvement in God, His church, and the well-being of His children. But let's be honest. Passages such as 'This is the will of God, your holiness' (1 Thess. 4:3) cause apprehension, disquiet, and a vague sense of existential guilt. Holiness is a terrifying word when spoken by the living God. Living the paschal mystery, dying daily to self, and rising to newness of life in Christ is a fearful thing to contemplate, much less live. Yet, there is something smoldering in His invitation - Come, follow Me!" [118-119]

Loving Others Because We've Been Loved

"How is it then that we've come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God? How has this come to be the good news of Jesus? Is the kingdom that He proclaimed to be nothing more than a community of men and women who go to church on Sunday, take an annual spiritual retreat, read their Bibles every now and then, vigorously oppose abortion, don't watch x-rated movies, never use vulgar language, smile a lot, hold doors open for people, root for their favorite team, and get along with everybody? Is that why Jesus went through the bleak and bloody horror of Calvary? Is that why He emerged in shattering glory from the tomb? Is that why He poured His Holy Spirit on the church? To make nicer men and women with better morals?" [124-125]

"The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friends, is what it really means to be a Christian. Our religion never begins with what we do for God. It always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wondrous things that God dreamed of and achieved for us in Christ Jesus." [125]

"Go now, beloved brothers and sisters, aflame with what you know to do: Love! Do not keep silent. Do not keep quiet, until righteousness goes forth like brightness and salvation is a torch burning. Until all nations see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You will be called, 'The evidence of God's love in the world.' Invite all to God's feast of furious love. Do as the Master commands, 'Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame' (Luke 14:21). Bring them starving. Bring them bleeding and broken. Drag them to the banquet, wretched and raggedy as they are. Sit them at the table, though they mourn and weep, necks bent and heads hung low. Go in love. Go with love. Go because of love. How else will they know our good God? How else will we? 'By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another' (John 13:35)." [131-132]