In the bleak midwinter….slush, cold, ice, wind, and a vacant Laundromat. There is something to the fact that all is right with the world when you can hear the drone of a wash machine. Ironically, behind the drone of the washing machine there is a TV jabbering on about some political scandal, another murder, a crumbling economy, and furthermore, some celebrity is now plucking her eyelashes and using green eye shadow which can be purchased by the pint for just 49.99 at 1-800-333-greeneyes…all followed by a rousing “God rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing else dismay.”:) Prime setting for a blog rant….. I’m still on historicity.
Jesus has been a hot topic for several years now, especially in America where he has been featured in “Time” magazine, on television, and don’t forget the “Divinci Code.” We have been told over and over again by the media, books, and other contraband, that the Jesus of the gospels is incredible and “far out,” implying that Christianity is based on a mistake. We may respond with a resounding, “the church’s teachings will do for us, thank you very much, so we do not need ask historical questions.” But if Christianity….the Church…is not rooted in what actually happened in first century Palestine, we may as well be Hindu, Buddhist, or Sikh. Christianity can and must engage Enlightenment skepticism and move beyond it.
A minuscule few have wisely categorized the challenge of 18th century Enlightenment to historic Christianity as asking a necessary question in a misleading fashion. Since there seems to be a great propensity to use the liberal/conservative divide, I will use it once again. The liberals accepted the Enlightenment questions as necessary, but falsely assumed they must be asked in the Enlightenment fashion. Inversely, the conservatives have rightly apposed the Enlightenment way of going about the question, but have wrongly assumed the historical question itself is therefore unnecessary.
The Enlightenment’s reaction to the Reformation’s emphasis on a historical and eschatological reading of the gospels was not wholly ill founded. The Reformer’s eschatological emphasis implied that Christ’s work on the cross was a “once and for all” work, never to be repeated, as they saw their Catholic opponents doing in mass. Unfortunately this basic Reformation insight never got beyond the cross itself, to the man that hung there….bleeding….dying…that now lives.
Are we still muddling around in Enlightenment and Reformation systems of dogma, ethics, and church politics? Is it possible for us to move beyond the Enlightenment and the Reformation, where the cross is nothing but an icon shrouded by a heavy fog, on which our God still appears to be hanging. Could we possibly move beyond this stale mate with the principalities and powers of our time, to a place where our God is LIVING, and the throb of His heart beat can be felt. If we ask these historical questions in a new fashion, we may find our lives radically changed. We just might come to a whole new, and yet very historical, understanding of the heart of God.
Bear in mind the gulf we blatantly observe in relation to a historical birth, death, and future return of our Savior. The lovable and adorable baby’s birth we celebrate with warm fuzzy feelings morphs into a terrible King returning in a rage for His Kingdom. What kind of storyline is this? So much for the traditional, “And they lived happily ever after.” Rather, the Prince of Peace, historically born in a stable, who historically did carpentry work for a living, who historically healed the beggars and held company with sinners, even prostitutes, who historically chose Galilean fishermen for disciples, who historically loved His enemies, who we hope is building a kingdom of love…this Prince of Peace is going to return as a new and revised edition to destroy all that he worked for.
Its Christmas time, and I’m asking some very old questions anew! Why a baby? Why a prince born to the poor? Why a ministry to the poor, naked, and homeless? Is it possible that our seasonal view of God makes our answers to these questions so commonplace that we subconsciously miss the radical implications? Has our eschatology been shaped by the enlightenment or by the historical reality of God entering our sphere via the birth canal? How far out is that…what kind of “mistake” is that Mr. Wright? Maybe we need to be brought back to reality by the very birth of our Savior. Merry Christmas!
(This entry is a conglomeration of past notes and reading taken straight from NT Wright, Gary Sloan, Isaiah, Revelation, and the Gospels)
