Does being Christian really make any difference in my life?

January 19, 2025

While most of us know of the story of the Wedding at Cana, probably only some will know that this story is only found in John’s Gospel. In that Gospel this miracle is followed by the Gospel writer describing an eventful journey  of Jesus after which he comes back to Cana where, apparently unwillingly like at the Wedding, he works a miracle, which in this latter case involves the healing of a nobleman’s son.  This journey of Jesus includes him going to the  temple at Jerusalem and throwing the money-changers out of the Temple, and claiming that he would create a new temple.  After this, Jesus meets Nicodemus secretly at night, where he speaks of needing a new birth in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, and then Jesus has an interaction with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in Samaria. And it is after all this that Jesus comes back to Cana for his second miracle as mentioned earlier. All these stories, except for the money-changer story, are found only in John’s Gospel.  

So there is a journey of making new wine from water, promising a new temple in place of the old, a demand that people must have a new birth to become his followers, a prophecy to  the Samaritan woman that people will worship in a new place that is to be found in spirit and truth, and neither in the temple at Jerusalem nor on their sacred mountain, and finally the granting of new lease of life to the son of the nobleman.

Both the Cana miracles dealt with fulfilling the ordinary ‘needs’ of people  - the shame that the hosts would have faced if the wine ran out, or the health of a nobleman’s son who was at death’s door.  Nothing very spiritual about that in our normal understanding of the term.  But the other three stories are clearly referring to a spiritual newness - a new temple, a new birth, a new way of worshipping God.  And yet for Jesus all these are connected.  Assisting people in their hour of need, IS his new way of worshipping God. Focusing on loving one’s neighbour rather than on carrying out acts of obedience to God, is a completely new way of worshipping God in spirit and in truth, and that is why we need to be born again to understand this new way.  Considering that all these incidents are placed by John in the early parts of his Gospel, it would seem that for John one of the most important themes is that Jesus is one who brings an astonishing newness.

We need then to ask ourselves, whether Jesus’ coming and his message has meant any ‘newness’ in our own lives and our own understanding of religion, and worship of God. It is true that many of us, perhaps most of us, have been baptised as babies, received the sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation at a young age, and then later went on to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony or Holy Orders at a later age.  While those who received Holy Orders had to, perhaps, consciously choose to follow Jesus, many of the rest of us probably have never made a conscious choice as adults (the Sacrament of confirmation as a teenager is hardly an adult decision for the majority) to follow Jesus. In reality, being a Christian is something we grew up with, and not something we have chosen.  As for those who get baptised as adults, if we explore their reasons, it would seem, that many get converted for reasons like these: because the spouse is a Christian, or they have been told that salvation comes through Jesus, or the desire to belong to a community where they have been taken care of in many ways, and so on.  Rarely, have I found that such adult baptisms are the outcome of a a deep transformative understanding/experience of what it means to follow Jesus.  This is not to deny that there are, of course, some of us, both those baptised as children or as adults, who suddenly go through an experience that do make us consciously reflect on our Christian commitment (or commitment to any religion), - and at this point, if the experience does not turn us away from God, a conscious choice to make one’s own religious commitment meaningful, often does take place. For some this experience could be when life suddenly hits us hard, or because we experience a powerful influence in our life - like meeting a genuinely holy person, being exposed to thoughtful catechesis, or having an experience that offers a eureka moment in our lives.  Unfortunately,  for many, IF it is because of some magical instance in our lives (e.g. miraculously being cured, or some great burden being suddenly lifted off our shoulders), this experience often results in spending more hours praying (e,g, more Masses, more rosaries, more novenas, more  praying for peace in the world, etc ) rather than leading to an active  choice to live like Jesus - offering genuine forgiveness to someone who has wronged us,  turning the other cheek, loving those who hate us, seeking out the needy or standing up for truth and justice.

Martin Luther King Jr. the  Baptist preacher and black civil rights leader, in his famous speech, I have been to the Mountaintop (April 3, 1963), reminded his listeners that “it's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day.”  And  interpreting the Good Samaritan story, King, (in the same speech)  offers his explanation of why the priest and the Levite did not offer to help the man left bleeding and dying on the road:   

And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over at that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked, was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"    

THAT is the question each of us has to ask ourselves IF we truly choose to follow Jesus.

Whatever the truth in our own lives, if we have made a conscious choice to be a follower of Jesus (or of any religion for that matter), we need to ask ourselves, what is the ‘newness’ that this choice demands of us.  

Unfortunately, sudden enlightening experiences do not remain at their powerful best for very long, and soon we are back to our daily grind.  We may have  gone up the mountain and ‘seen’ God - like the Apostles at the Transfiguration, and like Moses in the desert, - but if when we come down, we do not keep that ‘newness’ alive, then it soon becomes a distant memory and we may end up like Peter who denied Jesus three times, and Moses who despite all the many wonders he experienced, still doubted Yahweh so that he was punished by not being allowed to enter the promised land (Numbers 20:10-12). Keeping the ‘newness’ alive is always difficult. I guess it is the same with many other human experiences, including our experiences of love, of marriage, of a new job we really like, a new subject that ‘speaks’ to us, and so on.  In all these cases, we have to consciously work towards growing further, and building on that ‘mountain-top’ experience.  HOW we go about doing that is a personal choice, but it must be done, or else the ‘enlightenment’ becomes weary and fades away.  It is not enough to go up to the mountaintop!