The Very Rev Albert Bogle explains why the Passion of Jesus should shape the Church.

FOR those of you who don’t really follow what’s happening in church politics, get ready for a great deal of soul searching in our congregations over the next year, as kirk sessions begin to face the reality of what it means to be part of a presbyterian church.

Elders and ministers and church leaders are going to be faced with the challenge of dealing with the bigger picture, especially when it comes to defining the mission of the church beyond our individual congregations. The more profound question in doing so is, can we embrace the radical beauty and glory and enjoyment we are meant to experience in being, in the words of the Archbishop Temple “the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members?”

Over the next few months we’re going to start hearing a great deal about the radical way forward. All sorts of suggestions relating to the restructuring of the church will be coming to the fore at this year’s General Assembly. Larger presbyteries, devolved budgets, a slimmed down executive in our central offices and perhaps, even a new location for what has long become known as 121.

Questions will be asked about the polity and eff ectiveness of presbyterian government. It has been said many times about the Church of Scotland, that we delight to call ourselves presbyterian but in practice we act and operate like congregationalists. In other words when it comes to having an interest in a presbytery wide strategy for mission congregations on the whole are more concerned to keep the ‘status quo’ going than understanding the significance of a relevant regional mission strategy. (Often if such a vision was pursued it would empower the local congregation).

While all this radical thinking and debating is going on there is one thing of which we must never lose sight, I refer of course to the Shorter Catechism. It reminds us of our purpose as human beings and as church. Put simply, we exist to glorify God and enjoy him for ever. So all our reorganising and radical thoughts must have one end purpose, to bring glory to God and lasting joy to the rest of humanity. This kind of thinking calls for all of us to embrace a change of mindset and allow the ‘Passion of Jesus’ to shape all we do.

If we are to glorify God surely it is in gazing upon Jesus that we begin to grasp something of the eternal glory of God. Jesus in his prayer for the unity of the church in John’s Gospel Chapter 17 prays to his Father: “Glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed.” What a statement! We must learn to look more to Jesus in order to grasp the glory of God and have our vision enlarged.

During the next few weeks the worshipping community of Sanctuary First are taking up an interesting phrase from the King James version of the bible. Baiting the crowd, Pilate the Roman Governor of Palestine, points to Jesus the prisoner in all his vulnerability and shouts, perhaps in Latin “Ecce homo!”

It is such an enigmatic phrase. Do we have the courage to look upon the broken Christ? Just a few years earlier, John the Baptist addressing a diff erent kind of a crowd, had prophesied such a moment when he cried “Behold the Lamb of God”.

It is in gazing upon Jesus that we begin to grasp something of the eternal glory of God.

So what is it that we see when we have the courage to ‘Behold the man?’ Truly an enigma; for he is the beloved one and the rejected one; the glorified one and the betrayed one; the crucified one and the saving one; the buried one and the risen one.

When we find ourselves confronted with the important decisions relating to the polity of church governance let the phrase ‘Behold the man’ weave its way through this season of change and reconstruction.

These two voices John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate echo across the centuries inviting us to look more closely at Jesus of Nazareth and discover again for ourselves what it really means to ‘Behold his glory,’ God’s unspeakable gift to a broken world. And therein lies the beauty the glory and the enjoyment of a community learning to wash feet and in doing so reflecting the glory of God in the world.

I think perhaps the most radical change that could happen in our congregations would be changed mindsets and that comes when we listen to ‘behold the man’.

The Very Rev Albert Bogle is a Pioneer Minister of Sanctuary First Church Online at www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk