A Jesus-Centered Faith

"John's Gospel tells us: No one has ever seen God. It is the Only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known (John 1:18). Which suggests that we really have no categories for God except what is derived from Jesus, and that leaves the question much more mysterious and mystical. We are called to encounter God as the endless gentleness of love, so profound and so radical we can hardly imagine it. In order to come anywhere near we must hang around Jesus continually. The incommunicable God is communicated only by the absolutely powerless one." --Anthony Bartlett, "Millenial God"

"The person who sees me sees the Father."--Jesus, in John 14:9

Each participant was asked to offer terms that described Jesus. What do we know about him?
--Patient
--Healer
--Son of Man (True Human)
--Loving
--Caring
--Teacher
--Leader
--Example
--Path
--The Way
--Determined
--Simple
--Assured
--Assured powerlessness
--Generous
--More than himself
--Living Word
--"All of it"
--King without paraphanalia
--Love that pisses people off
It is a rich list that can be added to.
Here is our discipline: to receive all of our concepts of God through Jesus --"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by me (John 14:6)." A key manifestation of that discipline will be to read all the scriptures through the lens of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.
A simple example: Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," But I say to you . . . " and goes on to describe an assertive nonviolence. No one who is taking our interpretive principle seriously can continue to say, "The Bible says an eye-for-an-eye" and consider that authoritative. Rather, after receiving the teaching and example of Jesus, we then are freed to go back and re-read the Old Testament text with new eyes and a different appreciation of what it is showing us.
Discipleship is the exploration, individually and communally, of the radical love of God and the life we are called to live within it.
We will hear Jesus' invitation to us, "Follow me," and we will indeed seek to, commitedly and joyfully!