A Fifth Gospel



Stained glass window, Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, Isle of Barra 

My devout and loving mama was the gateway into church for me.  Like many people, I was taken to church every Sunday unless I was violently ill.  It's what we did.  It's who we were.  She would often tell me that you never know who might be looking at you and that you might be the only Bible they ever read.  After years of hearing that and singing -

While passing thro' this world of sin, And others your life shall view, 

Be clean and pure without, within, Let others see Jesus in you. 

Let others see Jesus in you, Let others see Jesus in you; 
Keep telling the story, be faithful and true, Let others see Jesus in you -

I would at least sometimes think about how I acted or what I said just in case Jesus was paying attention and on the off chance that I actually was somebody's example of a Christian.  

But not always, not even now.  Maybe that's why Lent has come to mean so much to me.  It forces me to reexamine myself and my life in the light of Christ's life and his death.  It also makes me revisit my ordination vows, especially these two questions that go back to John Wesley himself: 

Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?

In other words, are you growing in grace and cooperating with the Holy Spirit so that sin no longer reigns in your heart? Are you becoming someone in whom others see Jesus?

Just in the space of a few days, two of the Facebook pages that I follow have talked about our need to be a fifth gospel in the world, pointing out that our abiding in Christ and him in us must bear fruit, while another said that our witness must be, as poet Edwin Muir says, in our "natural tongue."   

In other words, in my mama's words, to be exact, you are going to be someone's Bible, and more than that, you are going to be part of the Incarnation itself, the Word (Christ) becoming flesh and blood, walking around this good earth.

So in these last few days before Holy Week begins, and before we come to Easter itself, take an honest look at your life. Examine your heart, and see if you are a Fifth Gospel, a book in which Christ may be read, and a person in whom his image and likeness are being shown and reflected.  And ask yourself, can others see Jesus in you?  If not, what do you plan to do to change that?