“THE DANGEROUS
MEMORY OF JESUS CHRIST”
Recently I came across a phrase
coined by the German theologian, Johann Baptist Mertz, that made me stop and
think. It spoke of “the dangerous memory
of Jesus Christ.” Why should remembering
Jesus be dangerous, I wondered? Mertz
linked it with the Eucharist and with remembering the story of Jesus’ suffering
and death. Remembering this confronts us
with the terrible realities of misunderstanding, injustice, and innocent
suffering. This is true, but I felt
there is more to it than that. There
have been many, many others who also suffered injustice and died innocently but
we don’t consider it dangerous to remember them. Why should it be dangerous to remember
Jesus? It must be that there is
something different about him that makes it dangerous for us.
The best answer I could come up with
consists of two interlocking parts. One
is that Christ was resurrected, lives today and is with us in the Spirit. The other is that he comes to us as we
remember him with the same authority he manifested during his ministry. He comes to us as the way, the truth, and the
life. At the end of the Sermon on the
Mount the people were amazed at the authority with which he spoke. And that authority is with him yet.
Consequently, remembering Jesus
makes demands on us. We see those
demands in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the Gospels. For example, when we remember Jesus we also
remember his command to love our
enemies and pray for those who persecute us; his command to turn
the other cheek; his admonition to
lay up treasure in heaven rather than on earth;
· to not judge one
another; and later, his
call to be his disciple, to take up our cross and follow him.
To remember Jesus is to remember all
he stood for and all he called for. That
can be dangerous. It can undermine our
prejudices, challenge some cherished opinions, and destroy our selfish
ambitions. To really remember Jesus may
turn our lives around and lead us in a different direction.
But that’s OK. In fact, we might find out it’s a whole lot
better than just OK. So let’s try
it. Let’s live dangerously. Let’s remember Jesus Christ.
