Christ in Others

Gospel: Luke 12: 8-12

We have been conditioned over the years to believe that to deny Christ before others is an intellectual assertion, a denial of some credal truth about Jesus in Christianity uttered aloud to other people.  Yet, so little in the realm of belief or non-belief in the scriptures has to do with what we say.  It consists more in what we do or not do.  Belief or lack of belief has to do with our actions in the world visible to others, and less to do with what we say.

To deny Jesus is to reject his presence in the person of other human beings.  It is to treat another human being not as an image of Christ himself, but to debase and dehumanize that person.  To deny Jesus is to treat other human beings in the same way people treated Jesus while here on earth.  It is to mock them, torture them, and publicly execute and demean them just as was done to Jesus.  How often are such actions very public and deliberately so!

In the Christian tradition we believe every human being is made in God's image and likeness, that they are images of Christ, and temples of the Holy Spirit.  When we dehumanize and maltreat other people both in word and deed we deny Christ, we sin against the Holy Spirit, and we commit the greatest of blasphemies.  It is a denial of God's creative presence in us and the redemptive act of Jesus for all people of all times and places.