Longing for the Unseen: Embracing the Resurrection
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"Now we get a clue at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, at least according to this guy Mark, who's writing, chronicling Jesus' ministry. The very beginning of Jesus' ministry, Jesus says these words, the time has come, the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe the good news. Now, all that he's saying, Jesus is saying is there's this moment now that we're in, this time, where this thing called the kingdom of God, which had all kinds of debates and questions about it at the time of Jesus, all that he's saying is that somehow or another, and the Bible keeps pointing us to this more and more, is that Jesus seems to be connected to this thing called the kingdom of God. And his response to this thing called the kingdom of God is that people should just turn their lives around. And that's good news. Like, you don't have to keep living the same way. The Bible word for that is the word repent. Just you're going in one direction, you can turn around. That's a good news according to Jesus." [00:31:47] (42 seconds)
"Jesus is actually the culmination of a family story. So God has said it in the Bible, like, his intent is to bless the whole world through a kind of an extended family called the Israelites. And Jesus has to fit within that story, that somehow whatever Jesus is doing must fit within the language of the story of the Hebrew scriptures, this sort of ongoing saga of God through these people, the Israelite people. Now, to tell that story, you can tell the story of God's people, the Israelites, through something that you could just simply say is the periods of captivity and exile. They're either held captive, like as slaves, for instance, that's probably one of the most, you know, poignant examples. They're held for 400 years. The Israelites are held as captives, as slaves in Egypt, or in other cases where there's a foreign army that comes into their land and kicks them all out and they're in exile." [00:38:05] (45 seconds)
"Throughout Jesus' ministry, over and over again, there's the intersection of what is seen and unseen is where you find miracles, where the reality of pain and suffering or sorrow or sadness or whatever else it might be meets the power of God in a moment. This is where the unseen meets the seen. But it's also the place where there's tons of confusion. Over and over again, people encounter Jesus' kind of working through whatever it is that he's doing, and people are like really confused by it. Sometimes when they see a person who's healed, their reaction isn't just, this is wonderful. Sometimes you can read about this. People have fear about it, like, oh my gosh, we don't know what to do with this. We're really scared about it." [00:52:14] (37 seconds)
"Now, Jesus of the Bible, you have to understand, is not an isolated historical moment. When I was like, look at a lot of high school students in here, when I was like in high school and junior high, my impression of Jesus was that this is a person who just, there's some stories that kind of go with Jesus from before, but then also there's this Jesus, which is its own isolated incident. And what the Bible, what's so important to keep in mind is Jesus is not an isolated historical moment. Jesus is actually the culmination of a family story. So God has said it in the Bible, like, his intent is to bless the whole world through a kind of an extended family called the Israelites." [00:37:42] (33 seconds)
"Now, there's one more question that the disciples have to ask, which I'm just like, just let it go, verse 11. And they asked him, why do the teachers of the law say Elijah must come first? Like, oh yeah, we saw Elijah there. What's that about? And they know that Elijah's the last of the prophets. Okay, now they asked the question, Jesus, this is a complicated answer. I'll do my best to kind of work through this here. Oh, sorry, back it up. So Elijah must come first. The reason why they ask this, because like I said, they know he's the last of the prophets. Here's Malachi, the last couple of verses of the entire Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament right here at Malachi." [00:47:35] (34 seconds)
"Jesus is the intersection of what is seen and unseen. He's the intersection of what is seen and what is unseen, and seeing the reality sometimes behind the reality is actually a scary thing for us. Some of us don't know what to do with that. For some of us, Jesus, you know, we just want, we can believe in Jesus, but we have to subtract all of the mysterious, inexplicable stuff that's there. If that's you, what you're going to end up with at best is Jesus, who is a semi-delusional teacher. That's all you get. Because he might have said some wonderful things, but he actually believed, he seemed to be trying to convince people that he's going to rise again from the grave." [00:53:10] (39 seconds)
"Because the Bible does a lot of trying to help us to understand that he's really up close and he lived among us and lived like us. And it's like, oh, he understands what it is to be like us. At best, for most people who are longing for a spiritual experience without the grounded reality of something like Jesus, more often than not, what they're longing for is a kind of high affirmation for the way in which I just want to know and feel like I'm connected to something transcendent or beyond. But with very low accountability. Like, you don't have to do anything different. Just live however you want and be connected to this particular thing." [00:54:59] (31 seconds)
"See, the only thing left for a person who's only got a sort of a secularized mindset, which, again, this might be you, the only thing left regarding faith is a better explanation. Well, there are these things that happen. Well, the only thing that we need then is an explanation for why people thought that. There can be no mystery. There can be no, it's just we just simply haven't found an explanation. Now, on the other hand, the other category of things when we encounter this sort of stuff, the other hand, there's sort of this, there's some indication that secularization is actually slowing down." [00:35:10] (26 seconds)
"Jesus is actually the culmination of a family story. So God has said it in the Bible, like, his intent is to bless the whole world through a kind of an extended family called the Israelites. And Jesus has to fit within that story, that somehow whatever Jesus is doing must fit within the language of the story of the Hebrew scriptures, this sort of ongoing saga of God through these people, the Israelite people. Now, to tell that story, you can tell the story of God's people, the Israelites, through something that you could just simply say is the periods of captivity and exile. They're either held captive, like as slaves, for instance, that's probably one of the most, you know, poignant examples. They're held for 400 years. The Israelites are held as captives, as slaves in Egypt, or in other cases where there's a foreign army that comes into their land and kicks them all out and they're in exile." [00:38:05] (45 seconds)
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