[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters! Somewhere in Italy there is a small pilgrimage site, a simple chapel on a hilltop. A row of calvary stones depicting the various stages of Christ's Passion leads up to it. In the circular chapel, painted on the wall, are life-size portraits of Moses, the prophets and the apostles, side by side, and the domed ceiling is covered by a single huge painting of the crucified Saviour. What is particularly striking in this church, however, is that the prophets and apostles all have one hand pointing upwards, so that anyone looking at them can hardly help looking up at the dome, where the fingers are pointing. Isaiah is standing there, pointing upwards with one hand and holding a scroll of paper in the other, with this inscription on it: 'The Lord has put all our iniquities upon him. Jeremiah also has a scroll in his hand, you can read what is written on it: Look, and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is upon me. All around in Latin is this inscription, 'Moses and the prophets spoke to Herod. There stand Moses and the prophets, all pointing to Him, Jesus Christ crucified.We can now broaden this circle of prophets and apostles in our minds, and see among them all the anonymous prophets and apostles who, for two thousand years, have been called by God to direct the attention of the world to His Holy Son, Jesus Christ. It is in this company that we all stand, pastors included, whose only duty, I feel, is that all their ministry, whether preaching, pastoral care or case management, should be a great pointing upwards to Jesus, the crucified One. That is why I have chosen, not only in my preaching today, but also in my entire pastoral work, this saying of the Apostle Paul as the basic tenet of my pastoral work: "I have not finished to know you about anyone but Jesus Christ, and that as crucified."
Yet Paul was a great scholar, he could have spoken of many other things, things that would have interested the Corinthians, the philosophy-loving Greeks, much more than the grey figure of Jesus of Nazareth, whose death and resurrection were simply considered scandalous superstition. Yet the apostle, obsessed by a holy obsession, spoke incessantly of Jesus, not as a human ideal, a great teacher, a fashionable slogan or a political leader, but as the crucified Christ, the Jesus who reconciled us to God, who redeemed us from hell, sin and death.
To point to the redeeming Christ, to know Him alone and to proclaim Him again and again is not only sufficient today, but a necessity for the pastor, whose only task is to place the redeeming Christ at the centre of the three spheres of human life to which his ministry extends: the life of the individual, the life of the ecclesial community and the life of the nation.
1) What does the crucified Christ mean in the life of the individual? Someone once said of Christ that if everything that is beautiful, good and true that has existed on earth since the beginning of the world were to be gathered together, everything would be found in Jesus. But that is not all. Christ is not just the totality, the sum total of all the beauty, goodness and truth in the world - he did not have to die on the cross to do that. Christ crucified is not some distant, elusive idea, but something very real: Christ crucified is in everyone's life precisely what man needs most in a given situation. Even if one were to think that one has no need of the Saviour Jesus, it is he who needs Him most, and it is he who needs Him most in the first place. There is no more perilous state of mind than when it is very self-satisfied, and thinks that its individual excellencies are as much appreciated by God as itself and its adoring environment. Oh, if such a self-satisfied soul would but once open his spiritual eyes and look upon Christ crucified, he would boast no more, for he would see that he was the cause of Christ's death. And the awakening of the guilt of sin means precisely that the lost soul finds itself.
The other great misery of the soul is when it is helpless in the embrace of sins and passions. It would like to be free, it would like to quit, it would like to be different, to be better, and it feels that all its determination and efforts are in vain, that there is no escape. And it is true, in this trouble there is no help of willpower, no help of sport, no help of cold water cures, no help of any other modern remedy or advice, but only Christ, and Christ crucified, who by His death has redeemed us from hell, from damnation, from a vain, useless, sinful life. Brothers and sisters, I have never seen a man suffering from nervous exhaustion healed by bromine, or a drunkard weaned from his addiction by eloquent persuasion. But I have seen more than once that the nervous, very tired, sleepless man, the fornicator, or the swearer, or the liar, or let us call him simply by his name: the sinner, has been renewed and healed of all his miseries by believing, accepting that Jesus died for him and thereby redeemed him from all his sins. I have seen the mourners comforted, the dying bid farewell in peace, because they believed in the word of Jesus, who said, "If any man believe in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." (John 11:25)
It is said that on the great prairies and wastelands of America, in hot, dry weather, the grass catches fire and a wall of flame several feet high rushes across the wilderness with the speed of a galloping horse. There is no running from it, the fire consumes everything in its path. People protect themselves by burning large areas of dried grass underfoot. In this place, where the fire has already consumed everything that can be burnt, anyone can stand in peace, because the swirling sea of flames, which can no longer find anything to burn, bypasses this place.
Such is the place of Golgotha. There, all the sin, trouble and misery that could spoil our lives has already been poured out: Jesus has taken upon Himself the sin of us all, and therefore anyone can stand calmly, free from danger, beside the crucified Christ. That is why there is only one remedy for the thousand sorrows of a thousand people: Christ the Saviour. This is why I say with the apostle Paul, I do not want to know of any other among you than Jesus, and that as crucified.
2) What does Christ crucified mean in the life of the Church? I could answer this question briefly by saying that Christ crucified - and here the emphasis is on the crucified - is the centre of the whole life of the Church and of all ecclesial activity. This statement seems to be self-evident, but it was not always so, and not everyone today takes it for granted. Those who see in Jesus not the Christ the Saviour, but still only a religious hero (which was the worldview of the whole of the last century), expect the Church to be a high school of worldview and moral philosophy. Those who see the Master of Nazareth, who binds up the wounds of society, rather than the redeeming Christ at the centre of church life, expect the church to be primarily concerned with the welfare of the people. In the souls of most people who seek pastoral ministry, this is the demand we would find for the Church. Those who no longer see Christ at the centre of the church at all, but only look at the external framework of the earthly church, see only its earthly organisation and moral weight, expect the church to be a certain kind of social association, a political party, which organises artistic theatre performances, merry carnival evenings, and supports its members in the achievement of their political aspirations with all its moral weight.
Well, Brethren, at the centre of the life of the Church is Christ the Saviour alone. This means that the Church is not a cultural society of pious souls, not an institution for the education and salvation of the people, not a club or a political party, but a gathering, a congregation of souls redeemed by Christ around Jesus Christ - which means that the Church is the Church only when Christ the Redeemer is at its centre.
Now our congregation becomes truly the church when each one of us who make up this congregation can confess seriously and also in this way: I believe in Jesus Christ, my Saviour. It is already very much the case abroad, and it will be the case here too, that it is not birth, not a baptismal certificate and not a tax that determines one's membership of a Christian denomination, but a personal decision, an open profession of faith and a commitment to the Saviour Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as a servant of the Church, I can do nothing more for a lifetime than to point unceasingly to the Lord and life-giving centre of the Church: Jesus Christ. As long as I serve the mother Church of Christ, I do not want to know anything other than Jesus Christ, and that as crucified.
3) I also want to serve Him for the sake of my Hungarian nation. Because what does Christ the Saviour mean in our Hungarian national life? He alone is the realization of all the hopes and aspirations for a better and more beautiful future for Hungary.
My brothers and sisters, after great national calamities, a great sense of guilt and repentance awakens in the souls of nations. After the great national scourge of the last world war, it is perhaps now that we feel this national guilt most acutely. Slowly everyone is beginning to see the many, great mistakes of the past and present, and everyone feels that it is time to help, to heal, to make amends. Well, my brothers and sisters, if Christ the Saviour is now absent from the work of healing our national wounds, if our national renewal is now absent, we shall once again be narcotizing, drugging the pains. A large national community can only be fooled, herded and disciplined by slogans, but it can only be renewed and made better by renewing and making it better in the individuals of the community. And this is only possible through Christ the Redeemer.
In Stockholm, a few years ago, after a big evangelistic week, the conversion of hundreds of people to Christ had a beneficial effect on the life of the state: many people turned up at the tax offices and declared their previously hidden income. Tax revenues increased significantly that year. It is not a question of the churches asserting their influence in the life of the state, but of the souls who have found Christ in the church community, people who live in Christ, obeying Christ in their political, business or official work outside. Our Hungarian national life will be renewed when Christians redeemed from this church and from other churches will go to parliament, to workshops and offices, and there represent and defend the eternal interests of the human soul, and there offer the nation the eternal ennobling capital, the Spirit and life of Christ.
I confess that the Hungarian man redeemed by Christ is a truer Hungarian, a more useful citizen and a more sacrificial patriot than the Hungarian without Christ. Therefore, I serve my nation best if my service and my life always remain a great pointing to Christ. Therefore, as long as I am a Hungarian, as long as I love my country and want to serve it, I want to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and that as crucified.
This is not an obsession, then, and not a one-sidedness, my brothers and sisters, for we have seen that Christ the Saviour is the fullness of life. That is why I want, by all means, to direct everyone's gaze constantly to Him alone. That is why I preach the Word and, praying for you, I ask God to make Christ the Saviour a reality in your lives.
For those who seek Him and need help, my heart and my door are always open to them. And, my brothers and sisters, now that I have officially connected with you, I ask that you also pray for me, that through my ministry and my life I may truly never know any other among you but Jesus Christ, and that too as crucified.
Amen.
Let us pray!
Our Eternal God!
We thank you for this day, this feast, this joy which you have given us now by your grace. We thank You for being present on our feast and for blessing us with Your Holy Spirit. We give thanks that You have helped our young parish from the beginning, that You have graciously led it and that You have brought it to this point.
But now we give You special thanks that You have made us, frail, unfit earthly men, worthy to be Your servants, Your co-workers, to proclaim Your Word, to carry Your message, to lead eternal human souls to You. We thank you, Lord, for your trust in us, even in the face of our great shortcomings. We humbly beseech Thee, take us as instruments into Thy holy hands, and work through us the glory of Thy Name on earth. Bless this congregation so that all pastoral work here may be guided and filled with the heavenly content of Your Holy Spirit.
Grant, O Lord, that the preaching which ever comes from this pulpit, the ministry which will flow down to build up this congregation in the years to come, may draw the attention of all to Your Holy Son, our Redeeming Christ, and we beseech You that whatever human deficiency remains in this pastoral ministry may be filled and completed at all times by Your Holy Spirit. We beseech Thee for all the members of this congregation, small and great, young and old, sick and afflicted, rejoicing and mourning, believers and unbelievers, that more and more souls in this congregation may come under His exclusive rule.
We beseech Thee for our Hungarian people, for our returned and unreturned brothers, for our Governor and for all our leaders. Give to this people as many patriots with a life redeemed by Christ as possible, leaders listening to Terea and guided by Your Holy Spirit. And even if, because of our weakness, we cannot list before you our many petitions, let us sum up all our prayers in the prayer that our Saviour Jesus taught us to make, in this way:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen!
Date: 13 October 1940 (Torockó Square, inaugural speech of Sándor Joó.)