Preaching Jesus and the resurrection
We seem to believe there’s only one way to tell the story - yet this differs markedly in content and emphasis from the first preaching in Acts. Concluding the series on resurrection, with Terry Young
When Paul starts to proclaim the Gospel in Athens, he has such a strange message that as the locals gossip about and discuss what he's saying, they decide he has come to tell them about two new deities. One is called Jesus; the other is called The Resurrection.
How could a pioneering preacher like Paul have made such a mess of his message?
Certainly, listeners today would hardly be confused about the resurrection because they are unlikely to hear much about it. They will find out that Jesus rose from the dead and about a resurrection in the future, but resurrection as a vibrant and pressing reality right now is well down our agenda while we focus on what matters, now. We’ve sorted out Paul’s little misunderstanding.
In evangelical circles, our way of explaining the gospel usually starts with sin, and when presenting the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit, our story revolves around atonement and the measures God has taken to prevent us from relapsing.
It’s all true but it’s not all the truth. Worse still, it’s not how Paul and his fellow apostles presented the Gospel. Don’t get me wrong: I believe sin is important; I believe in substitutionary atonement. I find the evidence compelling that Jesus rose from the dead. If the latter worries you, Lee Strobel is great in a journalistic sort of way and NT Wright labours over the academics.
What worries me is that we seem to believe there’s only one way to tell the story and I’m especially worried since the way we tell it differs markedly in content and emphasis from the first preaching that we have in Acts.
If someone came to you with a garbled story about Bono and The Edge, you might smile and set them straight with a history of the rise and greatest hits of U2. Alternatively, you might sit back and reflect on what it was that whoever told them the story got so excited about. What did that first U2 fan have to say that resulted in such a fragmented take-away? I’m not saying that one approach is better than the other, but I am saying that each is useless without the other – at least, if you’re into U2.
The first Christians took out a message of a master who had conquered death. They told anyone who would listen of an offer of new life that was available to anyone who wanted it. They defended it to their fellow Jews as being entirely in line with everything Moses said. They preached it when they were being beaten up, and they prayed for strength afterwards when they got together in praise. They put their money into spreading the message and put their lives on the line when the going got tough.
They lived as though resurrection were breaking out all around, without much care for what they might accumulate on earth. The excitement didn’t last long, and eventually the urge to organise and plan overcame all else. That early message sounded confusing to the first listeners, but it carried an incredible punch with a vibrancy and urgency that some hearers found compelling. Could we do the same?
It’s a tough gig, I don’t think any of us can manage it on our own. Let’s turn to a particularly difficult passage in the temple saga as we look for help in closing this series. In Ezra 3, we read how the returning exiles started to build another temple to replace Solomon’s temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. As the chapter reaches a crescendo, the shouts of praise from those excited by the new development were matched in volume by the weeping of those who remembered the original temple. The sound rumbled into the distance, where it was impossible to tell the two apart.
Time passed, and the project to rebuild the temple lapsed so badly that God sent a pair of prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, to jog the people back into action. Haggai’s prophecy is clear and to the point (Zechariah’s is longer and more complicated), so knowing what we now know about the temple and God’s residence inside us, let’s turn to Haggai’s message and see what drops out.
Haggai tells the people that it is time to rebuild and restore the temple. He argues that they have put too much effort and money into other things and that the temple is what matters most. Moreover, those other things have not paid off as expected, and so the investment in other things has backfired. Against the evident note of challenge is a promise of blessing.
It’s possible that as you have been reading this series, you’re worried about the lack of investment you’ve made in your spiritual well-being, maybe over decades. It’s good to be honest, but it doesn’t have to get in the way. Wherever we are in our spiritual journey, Haggai’s call to review the way we spend our time and money remains fresh and relevant. It’s never too late to start investing again in God’s great plan. Because God is driving the project, the leverage you enjoy on whatever you put in is enormous!
Extreme old age is a tough and expensive business and the soundtrack for many may be the clashing chords of praise and weeping. Before despairing, however, let’s return to the promise, which falls like a bolt from the blue. It’s probably the most startling phrase in the whole of Haggai’s prophecy and comes at the tail end of 2:19 – ‘From this day on, I will bless you.’
Let’s tap into that blessing as we see our tent in tatters or when our clay jar starts to crack. Let’s remember that we’re changing, not stripping off. Resurrection is the ongoing call for now as well as forever, so let’s put one final heave into enjoying it!
Image | Constantinos Kollias | Unsplash
This is a five part series focusing on the resurrection:
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Terry Young is a missionary kid who read science and engineering. After a PhD in lasers, he worked in R&D before becoming a professor, when he taught project management, information systems and e-business, while leading research in healthcare. He set up Datchet Consulting to have fun with both faith and work and worshipped at Baptist churches in Slough for 19 years before moving to the New Forest.
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Baptist Times, 01/12/2023