When I was a freshman in college, I decided that I would read the Bible from cover to cover slowly and methodically. Lots of times I would take any questions that popped up in those readings to Chris Benjamin and we would discuss the intricacies of the text. The more I read, the more the entirety of the Bible looked like a story of divine and mortal characters interacting. There's lots of stories within this large collection of books, but it's all centered on the love story of God with His creation.
It starts with a garden. A garden where everything is ok, where life abounds. God hangs out with the humans in this garden. Life is good. In reality, it doesn't get much better than this, who doesn't want to hang out with God all day? I also think we neglect this first part of this story in our churches today, we don't talk a lot about how things were in the garden rather we talk more about what comes next.
The Fall, that fateful tale of a serpent tempting and mankind making the wrong choice of going against what God said, and that ill attempt to try to be like God. If this is a movie, this is the sad part where things seem like they're going to go south. A lot of our theology and conversations take place Genesis 3 and onward which is the next part of this narrative. We're more concerned with the Fall of man rather than how things were originally created.
Then we see different kings and prophets come on to the scene of the story and the different things they do, some good and some bad, and we see God's workings with them and through them. Yet it's still not right, it's not redemptive enough. Then the divine invades the earth it created, and Jesus comes onto the scene. This is the part in the movie, where hope arrives, this is when a hero shows up with resolve. Jesus lived and worked and showed what the life God wants us to looks like. He served, He healed, and He loved the people He created. Then He dies, and as the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. But this part of the story does not end here...
He rose up. Jesus has redeemed death into life. He charges the church with His work as He leaves the Earth and ascends to Heaven and we are a partners in restoring the world back to the way it should be.
I outline this story of creation, despair, redemptive hope, and restoration to ask a question. As a person who has partnered with Jesus is restoring this world back to the way it should be, what's your story in all this? We all have our little mini-stories that we're writing with our lives, how does that story emit the power of Christ that shines in us? These are thoughts about the big story that we're a part of. In part 3, I'll try to answer these questions for myself.
Nice
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