Behold the Man!

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At left is Antonio Ciseri's painting, Ecce Homo (Behold the Man). That exclamation from the mouth of Pilate (see John 19:5, NAS) has (through Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and sending of his Spirit) been transformed into the church's pronouncement of the gospel of grace to all people in all times (including times of trauma like our current financial crisis). This gospel is the truth that God has included all humanity in his triune love and life: In union with God, in Jesus, through the Spirit, our lives (including our sin and suffering), are redeemed. 

Behold the Man! 

The redemptive, healing presence of Jesus at work through the Spirit in our world is making all things new. As noted by Douglas Farrow in "Ascension & Ecclesia" (T & T Clark, 1999), Jesus is the "priest-king of creation, re-ordering the fundamental structures of created life around himself, making it presentable to God in and with himself" (p. 280).  Farrow notes that our awareness of Jesus in his being and his doing, "challenges our entire frame of reference, physical and metaphysical, by allowing one particular man to stand over against us as a question mark against our very existence" (pp. 267-8). 

Farrow quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer who refers to Jesus as "the centre of human existence, of history and of nature" (p. 269). Jesus, is the singular center of the cosmos, and that includes all of us. We are included in his love and life. 

Behold the Man!

As Jesus' body, the church, (what Farrow calls the "ecclesial community"), it is our privilege and burden to hear and to proclaim the gospel to the world: 

Behold the Man!  

With the world's financial underpinnings crumbling, there was never a more needful time to proclaim this message of challenge and of hope, which may be summarized in three simple, yet profound, words: 
  • Belong! (you are God's dearly loved child; you belong) 
  • Believe! (believe this stunning truth of all truths)
  • Become! (journey with Jesus, who, through the Spirit, transforms your life and all the world)