In a recent sermon on Luke 6, I observed that as we read the Gospel, we can actually see three stories being told. There’s the story of Jesus, the one we obviously expect to be there. However, Jesus is also retelling, or rather acting out the story of Israel. God’s people had experienced exile in Egypt, the crossing from death to life through the Red Sea (likened elsewhere to Baptism), hunger and testing in the Wilderness and then entered into the rest of the promised land. Jesus, literally goes into exile as a baby into Egypt, experiences the symbolic death and resurrection of baptism in the Jordan, brings God’s Word about what it means to live in Hks presence from a mountain and announces himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath, bringing his people into rest. The third story is our story. We die with Christ so that we might rise to life again in him.
A big part of preaching and teaching is about helping people to find their place in the big story. In fact this is part and parcel of pastoral counselling and discipleship too. The joy of new life in Christ is we get a new backstory, Jesus’ backstory. This is something we need to be patiently doing, week by week, one to one and together in church as we open up God’s Word together. Gospel accounts lend themselves to this but it is true of any bit of Scripture. One of the things we are doing is inviting people to re-write the story.
This means that they get to be with the people, learning that we don’t live by bread alone as they were provided with bread from heaven to remind them of their dependence on Yahweh and his Word. We have communion to help us to learn how to feed on Christ. It means being baptised and witnessing baptisms, as we find ourselves in the story as those who have been brought out of slavery, hostility and death. It means learning to stand with the Israelites as they watch their champion defeat the giant and it means learning to cry out for mercy with Bartimaeus.
Preaching is more that educating or conveying information, it is an invitation to dive right in and get lost in the greatest story ever told.
Faithroots 