Thoughts to Help us Find Hope in the Darkness

Since becoming of aware of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut I have seen a lot posts coming from people expressing their solidarity with those who suffered in the wake of this disaster. I too have even shared a prayerful thought as I began to reflect on it myself. Now as the initial shock has worn off I have read some of the commentators, both religious and political, on the attacks and listened to an Advent Sermon on Joy shaped by the atrocity. In the season where we celebrate the Lord's Incarnation, his becoming flesh, I thought it would be helpful to offer a few framing thoughts for the conversations that will occur in the days, weeks and months to come.

First and foremost, in Jesus God has been revealed to us. So it follows that any questions regarding theodicy, questions regarding the goodness of God in light of evil, need to keep that in mind. God's ultimate commitment of his revelation of love for us is that he literally became one of us. He put on flesh and reconciled humanity and divinity in himself, and that relationship is not divorced in the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension or Second Coming, he is and will always be both Fully Human and Fully God. Essentially, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son...to be united to us forever.

Secondly, where there is no cross there is no Christianity. The revelation of God in Jesus will always be cross shaped. Meaning that God does not sit over and above humanity condemning them, watching passively or even apathetic to their concerns. Rather, in and for love, he is the God that came to humanity and suffered with and for humanity. Therefore, God understands what it is like to lose a son and even understands the pain and sting of death. However, now through our faith/fulness in him we can too can say with him, “O death, where is your sting?”

Lastly, the hope of Christianity, the world that God imagines, is already and not yet. In a world that seems so overcome by darkness we are called to be the Light and we know that the darkness can not overcome it. We as Christians through the Holy Spirit have felt, seen and even tasted of the powers of the age to come. We are co-laborers with God in bringing about his Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven through our work and prayers. We are the people who have been transformed, renewed and revived in the Spirit and that process continues in the present until the redemption of our bodies at his Second Coming when he will redeem and reconcile all things to himself. Therefore, in this Christmas time as we reflect on Hope, Peace, Joy and Love we must remember to be the embodiment of these things until his coming and partner with God in the transformation of this world until all things are made new and God wipes every tear from our eyes because the last enemy has been defeated, death.

Review of The Historical Figure of Jesus – An Outline of Jesus' Life

Chapter 2

Sanders previous chapter began by setting the scope of his project, “...to lay out, as clearly as possible, what we can know, using the standard methods of historical research, and to distinguish this from inferences, labeling them clearly as such (p. 5).” Therefore, we need to understand the world into which Jesus was born and the sources of how we can ascertain the information of, “who he was and what he did.”

From here Sanders decides that it is best, “...to begin with a very brief sketch of his life, which will serve partly as framework and partly as a launching pad for a fuller account.”(10) His assumption lies in that, “There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus' life” when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity.” Essentially, Sanders offers a list of the key points in the life of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels, however he remains agnostic about the resurrection itself.

After laying out his framework and overview of the life of Jesus he continues by discussing dating issues involving the calendar and dating of historical events surrounding the life of Jesus. He attempts to quickly elaborate on the various moments of Jesus' life concluding that his crucifixion happened because they saw him as an insurrectionist. Furthermore, his disciples claimed to find his tomb empty and began talking about resurrection experiences. These experiences convinced his disciples that Jesus was coming again and that faith in him was pivotal, therefore, they began talking about him in relationship to God, giving him important titles, i.e. Messiah.

He concludes, “every sentence of this sketch requires explanation, and we shall examine most of these points in some detail.”(14) This chapter provides the reader with a scope and sequence that functions as a key to understand the areas of Jesus' life that are important to Sanders' study. He does not want to try to delve into speculation about what could be known about Jesus from obscure ideas, rather he wishes to look at the data and see what we do know.

Question for Moving Forward

How we tell the story matters. The way that we arrange the events makes a difference in what is important to us. Think about the way the 4 Gospels choose to arrange the material from the life of Jesus. In what ways does their arrangement of the information affect the picture we get of Jesus?

Review of The Historical Figure of Jesus - Introduction

Chapter 1

Since being introduced to N. T. Wright during my 2^nd pastoral position I have become a huge fan of the so called 3^rd Historical Quest of Jesus. I had begun with reading Wright and his extensive body of literature, then I moved onto Keener and Witherington. However, all the while I kept hearing everyone mention E. P. Sanders and how he was a foundational thinker to this whole movement. Therefore, I decided it was time to read Sanders and so I begin with The Historical Figure of Jesus.

Sanders beings his Preface with qualifying what we can know about a figure in the ancient world, “knowledge can at best be partial and that certainty is seldom attained” especially when we are dealing with a figure “in a rather unimportant part of the Roman empire (xiii).” This qualification about knowledge is important and sets the key for the upcoming chapters. Sanders, as far as I have read, tries not to grab at too much information as a historian, rather he tries to make careful considerations based on the data at hand.

His Introduction starts with the crucifixion of Jesus setting it in a political context, a criminal crucified as King of the Jews, and continues with outlining the task of his work, “...to understand who he (being Jesus) was and what he did (1, parenthesis mine). However, this book is not a theology about Jesus, but will discuss some of the theology of Jesus and his followers who transmitted his ideas. This work then is akin to studying people like Thomas Jefferson or Winston Churchill, but unlike them we do not have as much access to Jesus' direct thoughts and ideas. Therefore, this quest is much closer to finding the historical Alexander the Great, but again we do not have access to Alexander's thoughts and ideas. Whereas we do at least have partial access to the thoughts of Jesus' followers and those who attempted to transmit his ideas. However, these ideas are given to us in a language that Jesus did not speak and were often quoted for the authors own theological purpose.

Finally, in clear terms Sanders tells us his purpose in this book, “...to lay out, as clearly as possible, what we can know, using the standard methods of historical research, and to distinguish this from inferences, labeling them clearly as such.”(5) This is accomplished by first looking at the historical, political, and religious context and then moving onto discussing the sources from where we access information about Jesus. Therefore, Sanders hopes to convey a historically accurate picture of what can be known about Jesus given our limited access to historical and personal information and that the Gospel writers themselves had “theological convictions and that they may have revised their accounts to support their theology.”(8)

Sanders aim then as I read him is to understand Jesus in light of the historical and theological information that we have understanding that the historical information about Jesus is also at the same time theological.  Therefore, we can not reach too far in our claims about Jesus historically, but we do have some access to them.  This positive view of the Gospels is refreshingly critical in that it makes us reflect on the Gospels not only as historical but also theological in their own right.

Question for Moving Forward

Does viewing the Gospel writers as being historians and theologians help or hurt the Gospels as accounts of the Life of Jesus?  Why or why not?

It Has Begun!

For sometime now I have wanted to start an official blog, unlike those premature attempts on Myspace and Facebook, where I posted random thoughts about this and that from time to time.  No, this time I wanted something different, something where I would really have to be disciplined about it and begin blogging and discussing my ideas with the larger community.  Now with so many different blogs out there discussing a wide variety of topics, why another?

First, this blog is going to be a place where I can share my ideas, my latest theological projects, and my reading lists.  It is essentially the place where I can have a public conversation with people.

Second, it is going to help keep me accountable to reading.  The most valuable thing I have taken away from each blog that I have read in the past are the book reviews.  Every time I see someone posting on a new, or even perhaps an old book, that they are reading brings me excitement.  It helps me to know what is out there, what people are into at the moment, and quite possibly if I have read that book already what they have seen in it that I may not have.  This critical engagement with the literature is one of the primary reasons I would like to begin blogging.

Third, from time to time I get into theological projects.  While working through these I mostly have myself and my wife as a dialogue partner.  Therefore, as my professor once said, "The goal of school is to make you into better thinkers.  Therefore, if you want to become better thinkers you must become better writers because it is in writing that you have to actually organize and work out your thoughts.  So I want this to be a place where I can exercise my thoughts in community and dialogue with others so that I can become a better thinker and writer.

Looking forward to the conversations ahead.