'...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this...' -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Extract of a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his brother Karl-Friedrick on the 14th of January, 1935.
(Source: John Skinner, Northumbria Community).
The Church has as long as I can remember in my life, prayed for things like revival and a 'coming move of God'. I understand those words and what those mean, where our world would experience a God uncontained, an unrelenting Son of Love and a Spirit being poured out and spilling over into all the regions of the earth—"the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:14).
But what if we have been waiting for something to come that ultimately won't satisfy? Personally, I'm over revival. I want to see a New Renaissance emerge on the earth. While if you get into semantics of what "revival" means versus "renaissance", both mean "rebirth" or "reawakening", I am looking more at Church history and world history. Within Church history, we talk of the visitations of God, where He showed up in seasons of salvation, healing, sign and wonder. Even Webster's dictionary definition of the term "revival" is affected by the revivals (The Great Awakening) of the 19th century. But the Renaissance that came out of Italy and ultimately spanning across Europe, while revisiting ancient Roman and Greek thought, architecture, art, etc., spurred something that changed human history.
I believe Christ himself embodied the Renaissance Spirit. He took all that had come before Him, the laws and the prophets and everything from the Temple and the existing religious structure and fulfilled it. Matthew’s record of what is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount, these words of Jesus are recorded:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).
And what came of His fulfillment of the law? The Kingdom came. John the Baptist kept saying "The Kingdom is near" and so does Jesus till He eventually says "The Kingdom is within you". He brought His Kingdom to earth, allowing us to have complete access, by His Spirit, to the same resurrection power that raised Him from the dead, healed the sick, ministered to the poor, the prostitutes and the least and sent the religious establishment running.
The world is waiting for new ideas to end economic disparity, new ways of ushering justice, new creativity, new stories to be told, new songs to be sung, new inventions and new 'dunamis' power like the world has never seen. Jesus was a Renaissance man, so may we, with Christ as our perfect example within His Sermon on the Mount, be men, women, boys and girls, of the new Renaissance that awaits us.
