Tim Keller spoke at the recent Desiring God conference of the importance of speaking the Gospel as a story. I have found this to be one of the most glorious exercises for my own meditation and preaching.
I agree with Keller, that our Gospel presentations have been in abstraction -- God, sin, sacrifice, faith. These components take on a different flavor when put in story form. Here is one example, however feeble. It came from our study of I Peter 1 here at Grace Church.
As I was studying this passage last week, it occured to me that the opening verses of 1 Peter are all about the story of God's redemption of his people. God in Trinity -- Creation -- Fall -- Promise-- Redemption -- Gathering -- Consummation is the story line in Peter's mind and his statements easily fall within this.
Here is the context: All of us are busy making sense of our lives. To do so we are interpreting the events of our lives by plugging them into a storyline. We do not respond to events, we respond to how we interpret them. Americans think their story is all about progress and personal happiness -- and unless I give them another story, that is where they will go in their interpretation.
The churches to which Peter writes are suffering. Peter is helping these Christian interpret their suffering -- in light of the story of the Bible.
He tells them they were foreknown and fore-loved before the creation by God the Father. He tells them thay have been acted upon by God the Spirit to become his own. He tells them they have been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, this entering into the new covenant.
But the center of the story is in v. 3. He tells them they have been born again to a living hope.
The word "hope" in the Bible is a story-word -- it is not an abtract term. Hope is what happens when I take what is certain about the future (the end of the story) and apply it to my present circumstance.
What is the story behind hope? It is the story built around the resurrection! What is the resurrection? It is often seen in very personal way (about me) -- I think the Bible makes it a change of epoch event. It is about the story. Let me explain.
Jesus has been raised from "the dead" (plural word, with a meaning of the body of people who have died and will die as in "Let the dead bury the dead.") That is the context -- and it refers to the order of creation being disruPted by sin so that death reigns as King over all. You and I are the "dead" by birth. Jesus has been raised from the dead -- it is the story that reveals what this means.
Here is the story: It starts with God. The world as we see it is not the way it was supposed to be. God, who lived in love and relationship with himself from all eternity, created all for his pleasure and made man and woman to enjoy him forever. Mankind, made in God’s image, sinned against God. Our sin has cut us off from God and therefore death is an intruder, alien to the way God made things – but God has promised to redeem the creation, purge it of sin and death, and remake the human race into their original design.
He kept his promise in Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. In Jesus' sacrificial death, the entire old order cursed by sin, was placed on his back and carried into the grave and buried there – and by his resurrection it has been left there, he has broken free, and the first light of the new day has begun. Life and immortality have been brought to light in the Gospel. Death is now working backwards – the dead in Christ are now the asleep.
The resurrection is the beginning of the new creation. We live in the last chapter of history as we know it. That is the basis for hope -- we are part of the story of God's redeeming and recreating the cosmos and his own people - free from sin. And the resurrection is the guarantee that it will happen. It has already happened.
All of this is a story-framework to help the readers of 1 Peter interpret their suffering. They are walking in the path of the Savior, who entered this world, suffered, was crucified, and is risen --so they too in the "now" time suffer as aliens in this world. But a day of glory, and incorruptible inheritance, is yet to come.
I think this is important for preaching too: The other storyline (and there is only one option) is god-less and empty -- the world as we know it has no meaning.
Life is only what we see – we are born, grow, get married or not, have children or not, age and decay, accomplish very little, and then die and are forgotten. There is no meaning or morality or ethics or permanance. If you fall in love, it is just chemical reactions – that is all. If you enjoy music, it is because your DNA makes you do so. If you are swept off your feet by a sunset’s beauty or the snow capped majestic peaks – it is nothing – you are nothing – it is all time and chance and chemistry. Marriage is nothing but a humanly contrived institution – morals are just ways of preserving our own safety. Suffering has no value or meaning. If Christ is not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
Those are the only two options; there are only two storylines -- and we are called to preach the resurrection to our lives in the midst of suffering. And to relate the Christian hope and story to people who have no true hope -- just empty platitudes and slogans.
I am finding when I put my preaching in these terms, it brings faith and joy and perspective to my own life and to the people I serve.
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