Resurrection as history

 

During the night my ‘Kindle’ pinged – a message. I drifted back to sleep. In the morning I saw a message from my daughter saying that she had arrived safely at her destination but had traveled through Manchester earlier and and now heard that there had been a large explosion there. The news today confirmed a suspected terrorist attack at a pop concert. Over 20 people killed, over 50  injured – many reported as children. It would appear the victims of a suicide bomber motivated presumably by a competing ideology.

I have been asked to preach at an event later this year on ‘hope’. At the ground of Christian hope is the resurrection of Jesus. Evangelical Christians, rightly in my opinion, insist that the resurrection narratives do not report a group hallucination nor should they be demythologised to the faith of the early Church based upon some sort of internal existential experience. No rather, we insist, that Christ is Risen indeed, that it was an event in history, if even, something new pointing to the end times. The resurrection is the basis of our ‘hope’, a resurrection in ‘history’.

Yet, often when we then apply the meaning of the resurrection our default position appears to be to make its significance only personal, internal, spiritual. We do not completely capitulate to a position we claim we reject but not far of it in terms of ethics. To be sure we should rejoice in the hope awakened as a person is captured by faith in Jesus. Yet, the resurrection took place in history – not history as a vague idea – but as a specific socio-political reality of ordinary lives, competing ideologies, and expressions of violence.

I think that this is where some of our best theological work and preaching needs to be done – in applying the meaning of the hope of the resurrection beyond the spiritual and the personal and into the real history of a world where I am glad that my daughter is safe – but in which others know nothing other than brokenness and sadness.

First things first

It seems that in some current literature and discussions there is something of a competition as to which should be placed first: church, mission, or discipleship. In this competition the order is important because that which is named first is posited as the prism through which the other two are to be understood and configured.

The argument seems to go that one of the problems of the Church is that historically it has also thought about the Church first – what it was and what it should be like and how it should organize itself. This was maybe okay in the ‘old Christendom’ days but will now simply not do. The concerns about this perceived model are genuine and important.

Thus came the challenge of ‘mission’. Mission it is argued predates the Church, at least the mission of God does and as a consequence the Church should be shaped by a prior commitment to participating in the mission of God. Thus the valid concern for Churches to be missional communities.

The priority place of mission, however, has faced its own challenge from ‘discipleship’. In contrast to talking first about the church or indeed even mission we need to focus on discipleship. Basically, the argument goes we are never going to get missional communities unless people are being properly discipled.

I think that each of these emphasis rightly brings a corrective to the other two. Indeed, that is the point, they belong in an integrated relationship where none can really claim the priority. Indeed this might be the problem, that we keep separating that which belongs together prioritizing on over and against another when they all need to be integrated under something greater.

I would argue, therefore, that each of these, Church, mission, discipleship, is an expression of journeying on the way under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. When Jesus calls someone he calls them to be with him, into the community of others who also respond to his call, and to be involved in his mission. Athol Gill argued this is the pattern we find in the narrative of Mark’s journey.

First, last and centre is the living Jesus Christ (Alpha and Omega) and the rest, revolve around and live under his Lordship taking specific shape and form as people seek what he is saying to them through Word and Spirit, where he wants them to go , and thus working out and seeking to faithfully practice what it means to be Church, do mission, and look like a disciple in context. The problem with this is that it is a bit unpredictable, uncertain, dynamic, changing…kind of like following the carpenter not sure where it would lead and ever learning on the way.