11 Dec 2023
As we approach the end of 2023, we are met with complex problems the world is facing, and we need not list them – we read about them, we see them on the TV screen, and many of these problems are still outstanding, despite the many meetings, conferences among world leaders and politicians. For instance, climate change and the threat to the very existence of civilisation – the consensus got a solution cannot be reached if various factions seek to preserve their own interests – certain groups would not, for example, give up fossil fuels, coals and fuels which increase carbon emissions, for that is the lifeline of their countries – then there are those who made promises and would not deliver them when situations develop that threaten their own economy and their own political standings in their own contexts.
But what truly are the world’s deepest problems? They are what they always have been: the individual’s problems – the meaning of life and death, the mastery of self, the quest for value and worthwhileness and freedom within, the transcending of loneliness, the longing for love and a sense of significance and for peace. Many of the world’s problems facing the world leaders and politicians cannot be truly resolved and addressed if the individual’s problems listed above are not solved first, or addressed at the same time. Notice how education produces more eloquent and able ‘criminals’; how technology and IT advances increase cheating, scams, more sophisticated killing weapons; how mental problems increase despite more advances in medical knowledge and treatment, coupled with new techniques of cognitive therapy, mindfulness etc.
Society’s problems are deep, but the individual’s problems go deeper. Bonhoeffer, writing from the Nazi imprisonment, posed for enquiry the theme “who Christ really is, for us today.” For him and for many who have come to know, believe, and love Christ, the recognition, belief, and acknowledgement of who Christ really is, is the answer to many of the deep problems of the individual as well as the society.
However, over the years, who Jesus is has been reduced to answers very far off from the reality and truth of His being – some look at him as the Jesus of humanitarianism; some as the revolutionary ‘political Christ; some the concept of Christ a principle of evolution, and so on.
But the Christ the world needs to hear is precisely the Christ of the New Testament and of historic Christian teaching – the incarnate Son of God who lives, reigns, judges, and saves; the Christ who prompts the confession, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
Jesus Christ, the God-man, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, still ministers to the deep problems of man and society in the only way that finally resolves them. “Him we proclaim,” said Apostle Paul, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). It is for us, Christ’s twenty-first-century servants, to proclaim him still, for the same end.