AFFIRMING THE GOD OF JESUS

Today, more than ever, there is an urgent need to tap into a resource that is benevolent, powerful and ever-present. Many people have lost hope and despair of situations they are facing. Problems appear to be unsolvable and impenetrable. There is a feeling of abandonment where people feel that situations are hopeless and that nothing can be done to resolve these. For thousands of years, humans have reached out to an outside source to help them in their daily lives. Every culture has a record of gods and goddesses that have been invoked for assistance with its difficulties. Having had the opportunity to study a number of these Higher Powers, I am still rusted onto the God of Jesus. This in no way excludes other expressions of the divinity from Allah to Zeus. The feeling of abandonment has given way to an assurance of a Presence that is there for me 24/7. Young children have a natural affinity for the spiritual dimension and are quite at home with the realm of the transcendent. This resonates with Jesus’ words, “Unless you become as little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Trusting in a Loving Power is something that can be nurtured from childhood into old age. A childish belief in God is quite different to one that is child-like where a person flourishes as a human being and, like Jesus, “grows in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and people.” A number of individuals will be studied to see how they related to the God of Jesus. This work has no interest in “proving” Jesus’ divinity which is already a given. But so is the divinity of every human being by virtue of their relationship as a child of God. Jesus became a human being so that human beings could affirm their divinity. JESUS – TRADITIONAL FAMILY Jesus grew up in a traditional Jewish family where he would have learned the customs and traditions of his people. Mary and Joseph would have taught him from an early age about a religion that he had been born into. From an early age he would become familiar with the local temple and synagogue where the rabbis passed on their knowledge of God. Somewhere during this time, Jesus would have recognized his special relationship with his Higher Power which supported him in his quest to make God better known. He called his God, “Father”, and had an incredibly intimate association with “him”. It drew the attention of his followers who wanted to know how to pray to this Being. The Our Father was the response, and it encapsulated Jesus’ view of God which he tried to promote to others in the last three years of his life. HIGHER POWER As a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and its Twelve Step program, I have come across numerous people who have struggled with the concept of a Higher Power. Many of these have mentioned that they no longer believe in a God whom they associate with a Church of their youth. A high proportion of these have been Catholics who have indicated their disassociation with an organization that ‘marketed’ a god who was more concerned about one’s ‘sins’ than a God who loved and supported them. Many other people simply lost any enthusiasm and belief in a God and saw him as a celestial irrelevance. As a recovering alcoholic, I have a belief in a Higher Power that I do not understand, but one that has supported me in my sobriety for 30 years. Even during the heaviest days of my 25 years of drinking alcohol, I never lost a sense of God’s presence in my life. I tried very hard to acknowledge and respond to that presence and used my traditional faith practices such as weekly and Sunday Masses, the daily Rosary and Christian Meditation to support me. And yet, I drank! I wanted to follow God on my terms and use God as a support and cheer squad for my ego which was increasing in size as my self-esteem increasingly diminished. I failed to look closely at how Jesus followed the will of his Father on a daily basis. In sobriety, I have been introduced to a spiritual program which invites its participants to “Let go and let God”. This is easier said than done and assumes that the person in recovery is comfortable in “letting go” to a God that they are comfortable with. Fortunately, I have had good experiences with the God of Jesus and have been able to hand my life over to the “care” of this God. I believe that Jesus had such a trusting relationship with God, even when it was sorely tested in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Crucifix. Jesus struggled with his Higher Power and even cried out “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ Jesus’ struggle with the human condition is a great source of comfort for those who have a conga line of doubts about religious beliefs. THE GOD OF JESUS These pages will seek to explore the God of Jesus who presented an approach to a Higher Power that is quite extraordinary. How did a person, brought up in a Jewish culture, manage to obtain an image of God that was so approachable and user-friendly. Jesus used Parables to convey how this God/Higher Power operated, and these will be examined in due course. Jesus’ God is a Higher Power well-worth considering for anyone who is on a Twelve Step journey. While on earth, Jesus became the finger pointing to God and, after his death and Resurrection, Jesus’ extended his hands to lift us into the loving embrace of the Trinity. Like Jesus, we are all invited to become “Second Persons” of the Trinity where we reach out to others in a “followship” of Jesus.