Garth George: Christ's gospel needed more than ever

While I was reading once again the other night the timeless and evergreen story of the first Easter, a piece of paper fell out of my elderly and much-thumbed Bible.

It contained a daily reading - from what year I know not - written by one C. Knott and based on Matthew 16:18: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

Knott wrote: "The Lord Jesus left us in no doubt about what he is doing during this age - he is building his Church. He is not improving society. He is not reforming through politics. He is saving people and thus calling them out of the world and into his Church.

"The Church is the lifeboat for the sinking ship of the world. If we are his, our calling is not to reform the world but to preach the Gospel - and thus help with the building of the Church. Let's not waste our time!"

And it struck me just how timely that message is to Christians today in the face of a world that seems as much, if not more, in need of the gospel of love and peace as at any time in the history of mankind.

There is always a temptation - and plenty of Christians have given in to it - to use the words of scripture to suit a particular doctrinal, social or political position.

It's almost as if church leaders and their flocks have lost patience with God and have set about trying to change the world themselves rather than sticking to what our master told us to do, which was to "go into the world and preach the gospel ...".

It has always seemed to me that the only way to bring change for the better into the world is to change people's hearts - which only the gospel of Christ can do - yet we seem to spend most of our time trying to change people's circumstances.

And if changing people's circumstances was the answer, there would be no problems in the world because Christians - and a lot of others, too - have been trying to do that since the apostles were still cooling in their graves, and without much lasting success.

I'm not suggesting that there is anything amiss with unconditional Christian charity, which is an expression of Christ's love and without which this nation and the world at large would be in a sadder and sorrier state.

In every nation under heaven there are Christians who are, often unobtrusively, obeying Christ's commandment to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils", who know that preaching the gospel to someone who is starving is not the way to go about things, that feeding the hungry is a sacrament in itself and that the souls involved can safely be left to God.

It seems to me that the absolute simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been lost to many of us - the simplicity that tells us that the only important thing we have to do is to try to be more like Christ, that if we want to contribute to changing the world, then we first have to let Jesus change us.

If we are to bring comfort to a community, a city, a nation and a world living in a climate of fear, then we must be loving people, for we are told that "perfect love casts out fear".

And that means we have to be patient and kind and generous and humble and courteous and unselfish and good-tempered and guileless and sincere, which is what being loving means.

The only way we can attract people to Christ is to be attractive people. It's what some call today "a big ask". And it perhaps explains why so few of us choose the simple answer to the real challenge of Christianity and look around for some activity to indulge in which will convince us - and, we hope, others - that we are being good and useful Christians.

Tomorrow and throughout the weekend, we Christians celebrate (if that is the word for it) the cruel death and glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ - the most significant event in the entire history of mankind.

As I ponder again the immensity of the sacrifice made on that first Good Friday on Calvary's hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem - a sacrifice made for you and for me, Christian or not - I recall the Isaac Watts hymn which even today, 56 years after I first responded to it, can bring tears to my eyes:

When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride ...
Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.