On the Good News
May 1, 2022
‘Foolish ones,’ replies Jesus. ‘How slow of heart you are to believe all that the creator God has said! Did you never hear that he created the world wisely? And that he has now acted within his world to create a truly human people? And that from within this people he came to live as a truly human person? And that in his own death he dealt with evil once and for all? And that he is even now at work, by his own spirit, to create a new human family in which repentance and forgiveness of sins are the order of the day, and so to challenge and overturn the rule of war, sex, money, and power?’ And, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, and now also the evangelists and apostles of the New Testament, he interprets to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
This is how NT Wright (in The New Testament in its World) brings the road to Emmaus forward to today (Luke 24.13-27), attempting to answer the question “How is the resurrection good news in a Postmodern world?”
It’s fitting for it to be presented as a story. Most of Scripture is either story or poetry. Even the driest, most legalistic parts of Scripture (parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) are presented in the course of the narrative of the Exodus and wilderness wanderings. How do we know about Jesus? Stories. How did Jesus teach? More often than not, with stories.
The letters in the New Testament (like Galatians) are a bit different, but not if you think about it. They are letters, but they tell us stories about the early church—what they did, how Paul felt about it, what Paul thought ought to be done in that situation, and so on. As you read them over and over again, you begin to see a story playing out. Look and see Paul pacing, dictating the letter to a partner in ministry, walking to his scrolls of Scripture, finding a story and reading it, dictating more of the letter, and so on.
The stories Paul reads in Scripture prompt him to say, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” (Gal. 6.15). Look up this new creation in Isaiah 65.17-25 and you are greeted with, well, a poetic story! “I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress…” Revelation 21-22 ties Isaiah 65 together with Isaiah 25 and 60 and 2 and 66—a bunch of different stories about how God will create a new heavens and a new earth, and what life will be like there—all the nations living together in peace and joy, with God dwelling among us and ruling over us!
Here, then, is the good news—these stories about what life will be like when God completes his wonderful work! And, when we catch sight of this vision and accept it in faith, God begins this work in us as we are made new creatures in the waters of baptism, raised to live out this ongoing story.
—John Coffey
