|
In publishing The Challenge
of Jesus (SPCK 2000) Tom Wright, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey,
has done a great service in making available, in an easily readable and
compact form, his deep scholarship which is revealed in much greater detail
in Jesus and the Victory of God (also SPCK - 1996).
The busy parish priest, and even the busy retired priest, finds it difficult
to keep up with contemporary theological thinking and writing. For that
reason I am grateful for the occasional opportunities provided by television
programmes (usually happened upon by accident!) to introduce me to some
contemporary scholars.
I first came across Tom Wright in a series of four brief Advent programmes
produced for BBC TV and replayed in Australia some two or three years
ago. At the time he was Dean of Lichfield, and the cathedral choir and
the people of Lichfield assisted in making these programmes a memorable
experience. He also published a useful small book on the meaning of worship
entitled For All God's Worth (SPCK) as a fundraiser for the Lichfield
Cathedral Choir Foundation.
Tom Wright takes up the task of revealing the person of Jesus as seen
and understood in the historical context of his own time, so that we might
re-think what it means to be disciples of Jesus in the present age.
As he describes it in his preface -"Just as integrity demands that we
think clearly and rigorously about Jesus himself, so it also demands that
we think clearly and rigorously about the world in which we follow him
today, the world which we are called to shape with the loving, transforming
message of the gospel."
Canon Wright invites us to engage in a fresh discovery of the Jesus of
the Gospels in order to deepen our understanding of the significance of
the cross, the resurrection, and the incarnation in their original setting.
It is a book to read carefully so that we can reflect with him on what
he identifies as five questions which are the basis of his quest:
- Where does Jesus belong within the Jewish world of his day?
- What, in particular, was his preaching of the Kingdom all about? What
was he aiming to do?
- Why did Jesus die? In particular, what was his own intention in going
to Jerusalem that last fateful time?
- Why did the early Church begin, and why did it take the shape it did?
Specifically, of course, what happened at Easter?
- How does all this relate to the Christian task and vision today?
How, in other words, does this
historical and also deeply theological approach put fire into our hearts
and power into our hands as we go about shaping our world? Clearly these
issues cannot be avoided, and the author guides us along the path with
luminous insights and encouraging simplicity.
The putting of fire into our hearts and power into our hands is, of course,
dependent on our capacity to engage with the questions raised, and allow
our faith to grow at the challenging points along the edges where it is
all too easy to become complacent and rely on our understandings which
were formed in a less testing era.
The living out of our Christian conviction in healing and self-giving
love is as necessary in today's world as ever it was, and this book has
the capacity to sharpen our focus and make us discover the reality of
the Emmaus Road experience, which he so helpfully links to his exposition
of Psalms 42 and 43.
Canon Wright's detailed expositions of this subject are published separately
under the titles - The New Testament and the people of God - Vol 1 (SPCK1996)
and Jesus and the Victory of God (SPCK1996) Vol.2 but (like most modern
theological texts) these may be beyond the budget of retired clergy. Volumes
3, 4 and 5 are yet to come. Certainly the brief form of the exposition
in The Challenge of Jesus is a helpful introduction to the subject and
may encourage deeper reflection and study to our advantage.
Amazon.co.uk
link
|
