Reading from the back

Unless we read the Gospels backward, we really don't understand how their writers put them together. Instead of starting with chapter one and working our way through Jesus' sayings, actions and miracles to His death and resurrection, we should begin with His resurrection and work our way back through His death, sayings, actions and miracles.

The early Christian community believed not only that Jesus was risen and living among them, but also that Jesus' resurrection totally altered the way they looked at the historical Jesus and every- one else around them.

Paul summarize this unique Christian perspective in the second reading (2 Cor 5:14-17): "Because of this (Jesus' death and resurrection), we no longer look on anyone in terms of mere human judgment. If at one time we so regarded Christ, we no longer know Him by that standard. This means that whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old order has passed away; now all is new."

Jesus and Job

Because Jesus' first disciples believed He was Yahweh living among them, they logically started to reinterpret familiar passages about Yahweh from the Hebrew Scriptures. When, for instance, they heard Yahweh's stormy interrogation of Job, they immediately thought of Jesus (Job 38:1, 8-11). No longer was it a distant, unknown God who "shut within doors the sea when it burst forth from the womb." The risen Jesus exercised the same power in their lives that Yahweh exercised in Job's. Just as Job found security in Yahweh, so early Christians believed Jesus to be far more powerful than the elements which created chaos for them.

Mark demonstrates his theology on this point by describing Jesus calming the storm at sea (Mk 4:35-41). Some in Mark's community seem not to believe that Jesus can take away the chaos that their faith in Him has brought into their lives. That's why many scholars point out that Mark blends three lines into an already well-known miracle story: "Teacher, doesn't it matter to you that we are going to drown?...Why are you so terrified? Why are you lacking in faith?...The wind and the sea obey Him."<%0>

The miracle story makes sense without those three additions. But with them, the story applies to each of us. Who among us hasn't questioned Jesus' concern for us? Who, deep in our hearts, also hasn't heard Jesus ask "Why?" And who hasn't walked away from such an encounter reassured by the conviction about even the wind and sea obeying Him?

No longer is Jesus calming a storm on the Sea of Galilee; now He's calming the storms in our daily lives. Yet, if we don't believe He's working for us in the present, we'll never believe He worked for His disciples in the past. That's the way our four evangelists reason.

Starting now

Christian faith begins with the present, not the past. All people experience the same parallel sets of circumstances. The authors of the Christian Scriptures presume believers differ from unbelievers not because we can pass a history exam on Jesus and they can't, but because we interpret the ordinary components of our daily lives from a different perspective than they view theirs.

For instance, because we trust in Jesus' love and care, we understand how Paul could "reach the conviction that since one died for all, all died. (Jesus) died for all so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him who for their sakes died and was raised up." Scripture was written to assure believers, not to convert unbelievers.

Perhaps our misunderstanding of the Sacred Authors' intentions and methodology are rooted in the way many of us were first introduced to Scripture: through a text titled "Bible History." Had we been taught that "their sacred history" was originally intended to be a reflection on "our sacred history," we'd have seen the tremendous value that lieis in reading and studying Scripture. But because we read it just as a narrative of past events -- albeit very special past events -- we never connected "our now" with "their then."

It's never too late to start reading Scripture with the same mentality that its authors composed it -- and never too late to experience God working in our lives.

(06-19-97) [[In-content Ad]]