Gospel
I believe that Scripture, Gospel, is God’s story. It is a story that began at creation, when God spoke the universe into being and created humankind in his image. It continued when the dark power of sin splintered the harmony of relationship and the shalom of creation. It continued when God, out of love and compassion, stitched together covering for the nakedness of Adam and Eve, put his mark upon Cain to protect him and promised Noah never again would God destroy the earth. The story continued when God called Abram and Sarai and sent them on a wandering journey to a land of promise and when God called Moses and sent him to lead Israel out of oppression and captivity.
The story continued when Israel forgot the God who rescued her and led her to a land of promise. It continued when God sent prophets like Amos to declare that justice must roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream and when God sent Jeremiah to weep over Jerusalem. It continued when Isaiah was sent to tell of justice miscarried and an innocent beaten bloody for the sins of others. It continued when Judah and Israel were scattered into exile and when God’s chosen people shed tears in a foreign land, wondering if God had abandoned them.
Like the mother hen who spreads her wings over her chicks to protect them, God refused to abandon his wayward children. The Great Creator God, whose breath once ruffled the dark chaotic depths to give birth to the world, left his glory behind and entered the world through a virgin’s womb. When the Word became flesh and blood and lived among us, the thread of new creation was woven into Gospel. Now the dark places of sin and death are exposed to the light brought into the world by the powerful breath of creation reduced to the fragile breath of an innocent baby. In the Son sent to us we see the radiant glory of the Father revealed and in the Son’s bruised and beaten body hanging on the cross we witness the depth of God’s love for us. In Christ’s resurrection we find death defeated and new life spring forth.
When the Son returned to the Father, God’s story did not end; creation was not cast back into darkness, death did not regain its power. Together the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to teach, to reveal and to animate our lives with God’s purpose, to call and shape God’s people into community. The Spirit reveals that this is more than a story about a people long ago, a tale only for children and song. It is real, it is now and it is also our story. We icons of God are still prone to sinful ways, still wander from the God we say we love. But we are rooted in God’s story, not cast adrift in a meaningless world.
In the common elements of water, bread and wine we not only celebrate the story but the story comes alive for us and in us and through us. In baptism we are buried with Christ and rise to new life in Christ, we are welcomed into the Body of Christ. In the bread and the wine we not only celebrate the story, we are nourished and fed by the God of story. At the table the Holy Spirit prepares us to be sent into the world to bear witness to Gospel through words and acts and love animated and empowered by God’s creative engagement with creature and creation, Christ’s sacrifice and the Spirit’s life-giving presence.
I believe that Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, lives and reigns with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. And I believe that one day – in the fullness of God’s time – Christ shall return, ushering heaven to earth and all things shall be made new again. Then “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
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