Last week in my Biblical Interpretation class, we were
finishing up a section titled, “Is Scripture the Trustworthy Word of God?” The
subtitle to that section is “If it is, what do we do with it?” A part of how
that second question is to be answered is to realize the transforming power of
Scripture in the heads and hearts of those who follow Jesus. The exact quote
from the PowerPoint slide at this point was, “With Scripture – the extant story
– in head and heart, believers are to the world what Jesus was to Israel.”
We spent a little time talking about “the world” to which we
are called to bring the transforming message of Jesus. I asked a simple
question – “What’s going on in the world right now?” The answer wasn’t quite so
simple. Students mentioned issues like the outbreak of Ebola in Africa, the
questions about justice in Ferguson, Missouri, the Ukraine versus Russian
story, the Hamas versus Israel story, and of course the beheading of two
American journalist by ISIS. Most of the students in this class aren’t old
enough to remember the details of September 11, 2014 – but someone mentioned
the anniversary was coming up – and that the events happening right now were
cause for concern.
Perhaps we will never know exactly all the motivation for
the horrific events of 9/11, or for that matter, what could motivate ISIS to do
such cruel and inhumane acts against two Americans. Even more troubling is the
fact that if what we read is true, often Christians are being targeted by
terrorists groups simply because of their faith in Jesus.
Our culture’s insistence on remembering 9/11 every year
along with the reality of today’s headlines provide for us troubling reminders
of how desperately our world needs the Jesus story to become its story. To His
own disciples, Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, so send I you.” (John
20:21) Only in our willingness to be Jesus to the world will His story become
its story.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote much of Ethics while in concentration camps in Germany during the last
years of his life. I think that if he and I compared “troubling reminders,” I
would quickly concede and admit that he faced far greater struggles as a
believer than I have. But that isn’t to say that the rather long and troubling
list of items from my class when I asked them to tell me about our world isn’t
challenging.
In the mist of his struggles, Bonhoeffer said “The night is
not yet over, but already the dawn is breaking.” (Ethics, page 17) He said that in the context of understanding our
call as followers of Jesus is to be Jesus to the world. “Only the form of Jesus
Christ confronts the world and defeats it. And it is from this form alone that
there comes the formation of a new world, a world which is reconciled with
God.” (17)
I reminded my students that when we allow
Scripture to be what God intended it to be and in our wrestling with its
meaning and application in our own lives, “it allows us to move from mere story
line about a man named Jesus to an agenda for the world which transforms it
into the Kingdom of God.”
Just thinking about the memory searing images so many of us
witness on September 11, 2001 is a troubling reminder of how evil humans apart
from Jesus can be. Reading the front page of yesterday’s newspaper likely does the same. The world
without the Jesus story embedded in its core being has no way to live beyond
the old, beyond death, beyond sin.
But what we know – because the Jesus of trustworthy
Scripture told us – is that God’s mission is to renew and restore creation to
its God-intended purpose. In the person of Jesus, God has inaugurated that
mission which will one day be fully consummated in the glory of His
reappearing.
Until then, surrounded by troubling reminders, let us not
forget what Bonhoeffer understood – The
night is not yet over, but already the dawn is breaking.”
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