The Story of the Bible

Gerald Biesecker-Mast

CREATION

We came from the dirt, according to the book of Genesis, and then were brought to life and consciousness by the breath and speech of God. Created in the image of our maker, and as male and female, humanity received from God not only life but a thriving and diverse ecosystem full of lovely plants and animals, land and water, night and day, within which to thrive and grow. Humanity’s parents, Adam and Eve, were given responsibilities to cultivate and to name the creation they had received as God’s gift. They were also given instructions about their proper relationship to their surroundings, especially about what they should and should not consume. And they were given freedom—the capacity to accept or reject God’s rule. This vast and complex creation of God’s, in its entirety and including the human beings that were given charge of it, was lovely and good, the Garden of Eden.

One day, while considering the desirable fruit hanging from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and after talking with a snake, Eve disobeyed God and took a bite of the forbidden fruit. She then gave it to Adam who also ate. Both Adam and Eve were immediately ashamed of what they had done and felt naked to one another and before God. After they pieced some clothes together they were confronted by God, who asked them if they had broken God’s rule. Adam responded by blaming Eve and Eve responded by blaming the snake. Thus began the cycle of disobedience, shame, blame, and alienation that the Bible calls sin.

Because of their sin, human beings were exiled from the Garden of Eden. God told them that life would be difficult as a result of their decision to disobey God’s rule. The harmony among living creatures would disintegrate, childbirth would be a painful experience for women, work would be a curse for men, and desire between men and women would be corrupted by power—by the rule of man over woman. And the end of humans would be dirt and death: “You are dust and to dust you shall return,” God said (Genesis 3:19).

Not long after leaving the Garden, the original human family was broken by jealousy and violence. Two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, each sought the favor of God through their different occupations. Cain, a crop farmer, became angry at his brother Abel, a sheep herder, because of God’s apparent preference for Abel’s offering of meat in the worship of God over Cain’s offering of vegetables. So, out of anger, Cain killed Abel. After refusing to accept responsibility for his actions, Cain was punished by God: he was exiled to become a fugitive and a wanderer. Yet he was protected by God from revenge killing by a seal of protection.

In the midst of multiplying violence and vengeance, civilization nevertheless emerged: technologies of work and musical instruments, cities and farms, tribes and nations. To God’s profound grief and regret, violence and disorder increasingly triumphed over peace and harmony, although God recognized the obedience and righteousness and faith of the household of Noah. After instructing Noah to build a large boat—an ark—and to fill it with his family and with livestock taken from the full range of God’s diverse creation, in a terrifying holocaust, God flooded the earth with water, destroying every living thing except for Noah’s family and the animals on the ark.

After the destruction, Noah and his household and all the animals he had saved exited the ark and began the work of renewing the creation. At this time, God made a covenant with Noah and with every living creature in which God resolved never again to destroy the world on account of human sin, a covenant that was sealed with the sign of the rainbow. God also asked Noah and his descendants to procreate and to acknowledge the sanctity of human life. “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed,” God said (Genesis 9:6). This covenant, sometimes called the Noachide covenant, is characteristic of the relationship that God was beginning to develop with his creation. By making a particular commitment to a specific people, God invited the worship of that covenant people, whose faithfulness is a blessing to all people and to the whole creation. “I promise not to destroy all living things, ever again,” God promised Noah. “You must also respect the sanctity of human life, which was made in my image,” God asked of Noah and his descendants. Fortunately, for human beings, the obedience of humans to God’s demands is not a prerequisite for God to keep his part of the covenant.

Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, each had many descendants, and their families became tribes whose governance was based in the rule of the father—patriarchy. These tribes, seeking to secure their future, and forgetting that God was their ruler, sought to unify themselves around a single city and in the project of a tower that would reach all the way to heaven. God, opposing such homogeneity, confused their tongues so that they were unable to build the tower or the city. As a result, human communities, each with their distinctive language and culture were scattered over the face of the earth.

ISRAEL

In one of these communities lived a man named Abram, who was married to Sarai, who was unable to bear children. God told Abram to leave his country and relatives in order to go to a place that God would eventually show him. “I will make of you a great nation, which will be a blessing to all the families of the world,” God promised Abram (Genesis 12:2). This covenant seemed impossible, given that Abram and Sarai were infertile, but in faith Abram obeyed God, gathered his household and livestock together, and set upon a journey to he knew not where. Along the way, Abram and Sarai became desperate for a child so they agreed that Abram would sleep with one of the servant women, named Hagar, in order to get a child. Hagar became pregnant by Abram, which made Sarai so jealous of Hagar that she began mistreating her. As a result, Hagar ran away from household and was left to wander in the wilderness, where she ran into the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord told her to go back to her mistress Sarai and submit to her. Hagar’s plight had caught the attention of God, who promised Hagar that she would have a son named Ishmael who would make a lot of trouble for everyone. Hagar was amazed that God would attend to her and address her, so she gave God a name—Elroi—or “one who sees” (Genesis 16:13).

When Abram was ninety-nine, and settled in the land of Canaan that God had promised to him, God reappeared to Abram and reaffirmed the covenant he had made, this time instructing Abraham to be circumcised along with all the males of his coming offspring: “You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you” (Genesis 17:11). He also renamed Abram Abraham and Sarai Sarah. Later, three men visited Abraham and Sarah on behalf of God and predicted that Sarah would have a child. Sarah thought this was absurd and began laughing. “Not funny,” the three men said. “Is anything impossible with God” (Genesis 18:14)? Through these men, God also told Abraham that God was about to destroy the neighboring city of Sodom, where Abraham’s nephew Lot was staying. Abraham pleaded on behalf of his neighbors, and God agreed not to destroy the city if there could be found even ten righteous people. The men of God went to Sodom and stayed at Lot’s house. The city was so inhospitable to strangers that a mob formed outside Lot’s door demanding that he deliver to them his visitors for the purpose of sexual assault and abuse. But God blinded the mob, so that they could not find Lot’s door. The men of God warned Lot to flee the city with his family, without looking back, which they did, just before a storm of fire and brimstone rained down on the city destroying it. Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Then, miraculously, Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to Isaac. As Isaac grew, Sarah discovered him playing with Hagar’s son, Ishmael. She couldn’t stomach this, and so she forced Hagar and Ishmael to leave the household. Wandering in the wilderness, Hagar ran out of water and abandoned her son because she could not bear to see him die. After she began crying, God heard her, and reminded her of the covenant he had made with her. God told Hagar to retrieve Ishmael and promised that a great nation would come from him. Then Hagar was able to see a well of water from which she and her son could drink and she reared him in the wilderness where Ishmael became an expert with the bow.

Meanwhile, God tested Abraham by telling him he needed to kill Isaac as a sacrifice to God. Obediently, and with faith, Abraham prepared Isaac to be sacrificed, but God stopped him from killing Isaac at the last minute, telling Abraham that he had passed the test of faith. Abraham had proven complete reliance on God, rather than on human plans and schemes.

When Isaac was of marriageable age, Abraham sent a servant back to his place of birth to find a wife for Isaac. The servant came back with Rebekah, who had been selected for Isaac through a sign from God for which the servant had asked. Isaac married Rebekah and loved her. They had twins, Esau who came out first, and Jacob who came out second, holding onto his brother’s foot. Jacob and Esau were an explosive case of sibling rivalry. Isaac preferred Esau and Rebekah preferred Jacob. Conspiring with his mother, Jacob would ultimately steal his first born brother’s inheritance and the blessing of his father. The two would become mortal enemies, reconciled only after many bitter years of separation. Esau had a multitude of wives, most of them Canaanite, and among them Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael.

Jacob, on the other hand, took his father’s advice not to marry Canaanite women, and instead went to work for his uncle Laban, who had two beautiful marriageable daughters. Jacob immediately fell in love with his cousin Rachel, who was promised to him as a reward for seven years of work. After seven years, Jacob prepared to marry Rachel, but as a result of a perverse deception by Laban, ended up marrying Rachel’s sister Leah instead. After Jacob confronted his uncle about the plot, Laban told him he could have Rachel also as his wife, after he had spent a week with Leah, so long as Jacob promised to work for Laban another seven years. Jacob agreed to this arrangement and married Rachel too. Since Leah was unloved by Jacob, God blessed her with children, four sons named Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. But Rachel, who Jacob loved, was barren, much to her frustration and despair. So Rachel told Jacob to sleep with her maid, Bilhah, who ended up giving birth to two sons: Dan and Naphtali. Not to be outdone, Leah, who had come to the end of her child-bearing capacity, told Jacob to sleep with her maid, Zilpah, who gave birth also to two sons: Gad and Asher. But just when she thought she was done, Leah gave birth to another son, Isaachar, and then another, Zebulon, after which she had a daughter, Dinah. After which, Rachel suddenly became pregnant and gave birth to Joseph.

By now, Jacob was tired of working for his uncle Laban, and he conspired to escape from his uncle, taking his by now quite extensive family and what he deemed to be a fair amount of livestock. Laban pursued Jacob and confronted him about his deception. After an angry argument, Jacob and Laban agreed to part as friends. While he traveling to meet his brother Esau in order to make peace, Jacob was visited by an angel with whom he wrestled until his hip was put out of joint. The angel then told him that his name would no longer be Jacob, but Israel, “because you have struggled with God and with humans and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28).

Meanwhile, Dinah, Jacob and Leah’s daughter, caught the attention of Schechem, who was the son of a Hivite prince. Schechem raped Dinah and then fell in love with her, pleading with Jacob and his sons to allow her to marry him. Jacob’s sons responded by demanding that all the Hivite men be circumcised, in order to make the marriage proper and to open up commerce between the Israelites and the Hivites. After all of the Hivite men were circumcised, and were still in pain, the Israelites attacked the city and killed all the men, including the prince and his son Schechem, taking all the women and children as prisoners. Jacob scolded his sons for overreacting and for giving the Israelites a bad reputation, thereby making them vulnerable to attack by other cities and nations who would view the Israelites as a threat. But Jacob’s sons responded, “Should our sister be treated like a whore” (Genesis 34:31). Soon after that Rachel died while giving birth to Jacob’s twelfth son: Benjamin.

Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son, which irritated his brothers. Moreover, Joseph was fond of discussing his dreams with his brothers, which in his interpretation confirmed that he would ultimately be greater than they and that they would serve him. In a fit of fury, the brothers captured Joseph one day and threw him into a pit. And then, on second thought, they dragged him back out of the pit and sold him to a caravan of traveling Ishmaelites, who took Joseph to Egypt. There, he came into the possession of a military leader named Potiphar, who made Joseph the overseer of his household. Potiphar’s wife was attracted to Joseph and tried to seduce him one day, but Joseph ran off, leaving behind his garment. Piqued, Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of sexual harassment, and Potiphar had Joseph thrown into a dungeon. There he got a reputation as an interpreter of dreams, which came in handy when the Egyptian Pharaoh had a dream he couldn’t understand. Hauled out of prison and brought before the Pharaoh, Joseph correctly interpreted the Pharaoh’s dream to be a prediction of seven fruitful years followed by seven years of famine. Grateful to Joseph, Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of preparing for the seven bad years. Ultimately, Joseph became the second most powerful political leader in Egypt.

During the seven bad years, Joseph’s brothers traveled to Egypt for food to help them survive the famine. In the process, Joseph confronted his brothers about their mistreatment of him, they asked for forgiveness, and reconciliation took place. Joseph’s family, the Israelites, moved to Egypt and received a place of honor as Joseph’s family.

But after Joseph died, a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. He enslaved the Israelites and oppressed them with forced labor. Frustrated by the proliferation of the Israelites and fearful of their numbers, the king demanded that every Israelite boy child be killed.

One family from the Levite branch of the Israelites resisted this unjust decree. The mother of a boy named Moses placed the boy in a basket and floated him among the reeds near the bank of the river, near where the king’s daughter bathed. The boy was discovered by the princess, while his sister Miriam watched protectively from a distance. The princess took the baby home and brought him up in the palace.

When Moses grew up and realized to whom he had been born, he became angry at the way that his people were being treated by the Egyptians. One day he became so upset at an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite that he killed the Egyptian taskmaster. Then he ran away to the land of Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of a Midanite priest by the name of Jethro. One day while he was tending his father-in-law’s sheep, he saw a burning bush from which came the voice of the Lord: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). God told Moses that the cries of misery and pleas for deliverance by his people had reached the attention of God and that God intended to rescue them from slavery. God told Moses to go to the king of Egypt and bring the Israelites out of Egypt. At first Moses resisted God’s command, saying, who am I to do such a thing? But God told Moses that if anyone, either Pharaoh or the Israelites themselves, asked who had sent Moses, he should reply, “The God of my ancestors.” If they ask what is the name of this God, Moses should say “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14).

So Moses went back to Egypt and demanded that the Pharaoh release the Israelites from their slavery. At first, the Pharaoh did not agree to the request, but after God inflicted a series of plagues on the Egyptians in response to the king’s intransigence, he gave in. During the final plague, the death of the first born of every Egyptian family, the Israelites celebrated a Passover feast of a roasted lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs, daubing the lamb’s blood on their doorposts as a sign of their obedience to and protection by God. This became a yearly remembrance for the people of Israel of their deliverance by God from slavery.

After the Israelites had left Egypt, the king of Egypt decided to chase after them, trapping them in front of the Red Sea. Terrified, the Israelites turned on Moses for bringing them to what seemed imminent destruction. But God opened up the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross over on dry land. When the Egyptian Pharaoh’s armies entered the dry land in the middle of the sea, God brought the waters back together over the heads of the Egyptian army. Safe on the other side, the people of Israel rejoiced in God’s deliverance from the Egyptian military. Moses’ sister Miriam took up the tambourine and led the people in a song she had composed, a song that would echo through history: “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:1). The song celebrated the power of God over armies and weapons, and acknowledged God as the warrior of his people. The theology of this song became paradigmatic for the self-understanding of Israel. God was their protector, their warrior. Again and again, they would be asked to accept their own weakness and vulnerability as a condition of possibility for God to act on their behalf. These themes appear again and again in the music and poetry of Israel, the Psalms.

Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright” (Psalm 20:7-8).

Come behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. Be still and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:8-10).

Unfortunately for Israel, the fear and anxiety that overpowered them when they were trapped by the Red Sea, returned again and again, even though God’s faithfulness was apparent again and again. Because of their reluctance to follow God and accept God’s rule, they ended up wandering in the wilderness for forty years, during which they received food from God in the form of manna and commandments from God in the form of a code of laws that were to govern every detail of their lives and make them a holy people, capable of bringing God’s blessing and judgment to the nations around them. Among these laws, and forming their basis, is a list of rules known as the Ten Commandments, which have profoundly shaped the course of human civilization: Do not worship anyone or anything but God alone. Do not make wrongful use of God’s name. Keep the Sabbath day—a day of rest and worship at the end of every week. Honor your parents. Do not kill. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not tell lies about your neighbor. Do not covet your neighbor’s possessions (Exodus 20). In addition to these basic laws there were holiness codes, which established the purity of God’s people, distinguishing clean practices from unclean practices, and including dietary codes, sexual codes, and other such codes. There were also laws that governed economic behavior and established a basis for justice. One such set of laws focused on what is called the practice and expectation of jubilee. These laws assumed that the land and all human property was God’s and that it was appropriate to give the land a rest after seven years, and to forgive all debts, free all slaves, and to redistribute the land and all capital every fifty years, during the year of jubilee, or the year of the Lord’s favor.

In the wilderness, the life of God’s people revolved around the worship of God in the gathered assembly and the following of God’s law in the living of daily life. At the same time, the people had to cope with their own disobedience and forgetfulness, from which they were rescued again and again by the faithfulness of God, whose covenant is irrevocable. Even their leaders, including Moses, were disobedient at times. As a result, Moses was prevented from seeing his people enter the land they had been promised by God.

After Moses died, the people were lead by a new leader, Joshua, into the possession of the land of Canaan that they had been given by God. During this time, they were required by God to demonstrate their utter dependence on God in the conquest. For example, rather than take the city of Jericho by military force, they were called upon to march around the city once a day for six days, with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of ram’s horns, and on the seventh day they were to march around the city seven times after which the rams horns were to be blown, the people were to shout at the top of the lungs, and the walls would fall down. Which is what happened, according to the book of Joshua. When Israel conquered the city of Ai, they did it by approaching the city; then when the city’s defenders confronted them, by running away. When the Ai military came after them, they hid in the bushes, and then circled back to the city which was no longer protected by the military and destroyed it. Through tricks like this, and through complete dependence on the power of God, a relatively small and seemingly powerless guerilla movement managed to conquer the wealthy, powerful, and militarily superior kingdoms of Canaan.

As the people of Israel settled into Canaan, they were led by a series of political leaders called judges, who were given authority to settle disputes among the people and to plot military strategy to defend the people from their enemies. Among these was Deborah, a prophetess who called the bluff of the mighty general Sisera, whose army threatened the Israelites. When Deborah called out ten thousand Israelite warriors heading in the general direction of Sisera, the general panicked and fled. Another woman of Israel, Jael, invited tired Sisera into her tent, and when he fell asleep, pounded a tent peg through his head. A song celebrating Deborah’s exploits and Jael’s trickery appears in the book of Judges: “The peasantry prospered in Israel, they grew fat on plunder, because you arose, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel. When new gods were chosen, when war was in the gates. Was shield or spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel” (Judges 5:7-8)? A later judge, Gideon, was called by God to protect Israel from the Midianites. God told Gideon to reduce the size of his army from 32,000 to 10,000 and then to 300, so that the victory would be God’s, not that of humans. Gideon’s small group surrounded the Midianite camp at night, and, when the camp was asleep, they blew their trumpets and shouted “For the Lord and for Gideon.” And the Midianites ran away in terror.

The fragmentation and chaos that typified this time led the people to seek more political stability in the form of a king, like the surrounding nations had. The judge who reluctantly assisted the Israelites in the political transition to a kingdom was Samuel, who had been offered to God by his mother Hannah when he was a young child. Hannah was one of the wives of Elkanah, who loved her dearly, even though she seemed unable to bear any children. Another of Elkanah’s wives, Peninnah, produced many offspring and taunted Hannah, no doubt because she resented Elkanah’s particular love for Hannah. After Hannah pleaded with God and promised that any son would be given back to God, God heard Hannah and gave her a son, Samuel. Hannah presented Samuel to God by taking him to the temple and turning him over to the priest, Eli. Then she sang a song:

There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has born seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; be brings low, he also exalts. He raises the poor up from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world (I Samuel 2:2-8).

As a judge, Samuel opposed the movement to constitute Israel as a nation with a king. His argument was that a king would impose high taxes and conscript the young men into his army. But he lost the argument because the people had decided that they wanted to be like the other nations. And so he anointed Saul the first king of Israel, a king who was off to a good start but ended his days in depression, paranoia, and defeat. Saul was followed by David who presided over the golden days of the kingdom of Israel. David was a shepherd boy who had defeated the giant Goliath with his slingshot, who had soothed the depressed King Saul with his harp, and whose best friend had been the king’s son Jonathan. Saul eventually had tried to kill David, because of his resentment at David’s military exploits. But when Saul and Jonathan were killed in one of many battles with the neighboring Philistines, he sang a mournful song about the loss of his king and best friend that concluded with the lament “How the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war perished” (2 Samuel 1:27)!

Although David’s kingdom was the high point of Israel’s aspirations to nationhood, and although he was a beloved military leader who secured the nation against its enemies and built its economic strength, King David was also deeply flawed. Among his several transgressions of God’s rule was his act of adultery with Bathsheba, whose husband he had killed in the front lines of battle so that he could have Bathsheba for himself—even though David was a man who already had several wives. The prophet Nathan called David on the carpet for his sin, and David repented.

David and Bathsheba’s son Solomon would be the next king, and the one to build a temple for Israelite worship, to replace the tabernacle tent that had been carried by the Israelites during their life in the wilderness. The movement of worship from tabernacle to temple was a movement that David had sought to achieve, but he was denied the accomplishment of this desire by God. The question of whether God really wanted to move from the tabernacle to the temple is related to the question of whether God really wanted his people to be like the nations and have a king. Clearly David and Solomon and their supporters thought that the kingdom and temple were the will of God. Other members of God’s people were not so sure. Eventually many of the prophets sent by God would make the judgment that the royal era, while glorious, was a time of failure and that the kings of Israel did not serve God or keep the laws (Nehemiah 9:34).

Indeed, following Solomon’s grand and decadent kingship (he of the thousand wives), the kingdom of Israel descended into civil war, splintered into two kingdoms—Israel and Judah—and eventually was swallowed up by the surrounding empires—first of Assyria, then of Babylon, then of Persia, and then of Rome. In all of these contexts of vulnerable exile, God used faithful people to save God’s people from their enemies. The young woman, Esther, for example, who became the queen of Persia, foiled a plot by one of the king’s political operatives to utterly destroy her people. The obedience and vision of the seer Daniel set an example for God’s people by demonstrating how to live a life that is distinguished and holy, even in the midst of a pagan culture, and even when threatened by a den of lions. God’s prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold the exile and provided an explanation for the apparent disasters: the people of God had been unfaithful, they had refused to trust God, and they were obsessed with wealth, security, and privilege, at the expense of the poor and the widows. Such prophets also encouraged the exiled people of God to renew their acceptance of God’s covenant, to practice obedience to God’s rule and reign, and to become a blessing to the nations into which they had been sent as exiles. An emerging, even if contested, understanding was that exile was not merely a punishment but also perhaps the best will of God for his people, a way for them to bring the blessing of God to all the families of the earth, without weapons and without coercion.

At the same time, the hope for deliverance never died. God’s people expected that, just as God had done in the past, God would save God’s people from their enemies. Isaiah predicted that one day “every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low…the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all people shall see it together” (Isaiah 40:4-5). The one who would come to deliver them from bondage and subservience, who would bring in a new day of healing and hope, was the one they called the Messiah—the anointed one.

JESUS

While the people of Israel, now known as the Jews, were under the rule of the Romans, a Jewish priest by the name of Zechariah was visited by an angel of the Lord, named Gabriel, who told him that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a child, who would call the people of God to repentance. Given their old age, Zechariah doubted the angel’s words. As a result, the angel told Zechariah he would be unable to speak until his child was born. Soon Elizabeth conceived and blessed God for looking favorably on her.

Not long after this, a young relative of Elizabeth’s named Mary, a virgin, was also visited by the angel Gabriel who told her that she would have a son who she should name Jesus. Mary asked, how can this be since I am a virgin? The angel responded that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and overshadow her, and that her child would be holy, the son of God. Telling her of how her relative Elizabeth, who was presumably barren, now was pregnant, the angel reminded Mary that “nothing is impossible with God.” Mary responded: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word”(Luke 2:38).

When Mary went to visit Elizabeth, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and greeted Mary with these words: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary responded with poetry:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on, all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promises made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55).

One night in a shed in the town of Bethlehem, during a journey imposed by the political authority of Rome, Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus, and put him in a manger. Shepherds, who had been visited by angels proclaiming good news of a savior and of peace on earth showed up to visit the child. Later wise men from the East, following astrological phenomena, brought gifts in acknowledgement that a king had been born. When Jesus was brought to the temple for child dedication, he was blessed by Simeon, who had refused to die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah, and by the prophet Anna, who praised God and identified Jesus with the redemption of Jerusalem.

As Jesus grew older, Elizabeth’s son John began to call on people to repent from their sins and to be baptized with water in the Jordan river, for the forgiveness of their sins. He cited the prophet Isaiah in his sermons: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:4-6). When following their baptism, people asked what they should do, John the Baptist replied: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise” (Luke 3:11).

One day Jesus came to John in order to be baptized. At that time, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven to him and a voice was heard: This is my beloved son, with whom I am pleased. Following his baptism and the affirmation of God, Jesus was tempted by the devil to acknowledge the valid Satanic dominion of the worldly powers and authorities, in order to receive immediate control over the kingdoms. Jesus told Satan that only God should be worshipped or served and he rejected Satan’s authority over the powers. Then he went to the Jewish congregation in Nazareth, his hometown, and read from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Then Jesus said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” But the audience mostly rejected Jesus’ teaching. So he went elsewhere, saying “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also” (Luke 5:43). Along the way he began healing people of their illnesses, both spiritual and physical. And he began to gather a band of disciples around him, typically asking each one to drop whatever occupation they were engaged in order to follow after him. Once there were twelve disciples, he went up to a mountain with them, and with his growing audience as a backdrop, preached a sermon that laid out a vision for the coming rule and reign of God, a vision he said was to be fulfilled now. In the spirit of many ancient Jewish prophets, he blessed those who lacked: the poor, the sad, meek, and those without justice. He also blessed those who acted: the pure, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.

He then articulated a renewed understanding of the law of God, a law he said was being fulfilled, not abolished. You have heard that you should not kill, but I say to you do not be angry with a brother or sister. If you come to the altar to worship God, but remember that your neighbor has something against you, go be reconciled to your neighbor before you come to worship God. You have heard it said, do not commit adultery, but I say to you don’t even look at someone else with lust. You heard it said, get a certificate before you divorce, but I say, don’t ever divorce, except in the case of the adultery of your partner. You heard that you should not swear falsely, but I say don’t swear at all; rather let your Yes be Yes and your No be No.

You heard it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give away your cloak also. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to anyone who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You heard it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be the children of God. Don’t practice your piety in front of others; for example, don’t make a big show of giving money away—do it secretly. When you pray, don’t use a lot of fancy empty phrases. Just pray for God’s kingdom to come, for daily bread, for forgiveness of debts in the same way that you forgive others, and for rescue from evil. Don’t store up capital or assets for yourself, but store up treasure in heaven. Where your treasure is, there is your heart also. You cannot serve both God and wealth. Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink. Rely on God alone. Is not life more than clothes, the body, food? Strive first for God’s reign and rule and God will look after you. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Today’s trouble is enough for today. Do not judge another, lest you also be judged. Don’t try to take a speck out of your neighbor’s eye, while you have a log in your own. The road to life is narrow and not many people discover it. Not everyone who says Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of God; only those who do the will of God will enter (Matthew 5, 6, 7).

Those who followed Jesus, his disciples, were often puzzled by these sayings, but they stayed with him anyway. And in Jesus’ daily actions and teachings, the disciples learned how to become a new kind of community, one in which burdens were shared rather than passed on, in which grievances were discussed and forgiven rather than resolved in the courts or through violence, in which strangers and women were welcomed rather than feared or harrassed, in which bread and drink was shared around the table by strangers and friends alike, and by which the powers of the world were put in their place. The disciples experienced freedom, in other words. This freedom derived from their new experience of life as a gift from God, along with all of the world’s resources, not something that they needed to protect or hoard but rather to generously give away, just as God had done.

Not surprisingly, Jesus’ teachings about wealth redistribution, about the generosity of God, about living defenselessly, about the worship of God alone, threatened both the religious and political establishments of his time; before long these two establishments colluded in a plot to capture Jesus and bring him to trial for claiming to be a King and the ruler of a new kingdom. The disciples were confused as Jesus’ confrontation with the religious and political forces around him escalated. On the one hand, he marched into the temple and threw out the money changers and then led a victory parade down the streets of Jerusalem, atop a donkey. On the other hand, he told them that he was not going to lead a violent revolution, that his servants were not to fight, and that he was going to be executed on a cross. My kingdom comes from above; it does not need to be defended with the sword, he said, after disciple Peter clumsily tried to defend Jesus by cutting off the ear of one of the militia members that was after Jesus.

On the night before Jesus was taken into custody, he gathered his disciples together in a celebration of the Jewish Passover. Sharing bread and wine, Jesus called on his disciples to remember him whenever they gathered around the table in the future. This is my body broken for you, he said, giving them bread. This is the blood of the covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins, he said, passing the wine.

Later that night, after anguished prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was arrested and hauled first before Caiaphas the high priest and then before Pilate the Roman governor. The high priest accused him of blasphemy and the governor accused him of sedition. Jesus refused to defend himself before either of these tribunals, insisting that he was present in court only through the will of God, and not by the authority of human beings.

After being beaten and mocked, with a crown of thorns placed on his head, Jesus was nailed to a cross and hoisted up between two common criminals. A sign was placed in derision over his head: the King of the Jews. After hanging there in pain and agony for the better part of a day, Jesus died on the cross.

At that moment the curtain in the temple that separated God from the worshippers was torn in two, the earth quaked, rocks were split apart, and the bodies of the saints rose out of their tombs. Truly this was the Son of God, said the people who were watching Jesus.

Jesus’ friends placed him in a tomb and the women cared for his body. Among them was Mary Magdalene, who also returned to the tomb on the first day of the week, after the Sabbath, along with the other Mary. There they found the tomb was empty. They saw an angel outside the tomb who told them that Jesus had been raised and that they should go tell the other disciples. The women hurried away to join the male disciples with their amazing news. Not long after that Jesus joined them and gave his disciples a commission: “All authority has been given to me,” he said. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Not long after that, Jesus ascended back into heaven, and the disciples returned to the temple, where they continually praised God.

CHURCH

The disciples—or the apostles, as they became known—accepted the commission Jesus had given them. They preached the good news of the arrival of God’s rule and reign, they baptized new believers by the hundreds, and they received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost—a miraculous event that gathered together people of every tribe and nation together, each speaking their own language and everybody understanding everyone nevertheless. Through the power of God, the apostles continued the work of Jesus Christ, healing the sick, teaching the crowds, and extending the boundaries of the people of God to include Gentiles of all kinds. Jesus Christ, whom God raised from the dead, the stone that the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone, they preached. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Furthermore, in their communities, they sought to obey Jesus teachings by sharing all of their possessions in common, with no one claiming private ownership of anything. This sort of speech and action got them in trouble with the same kinds of authorities that Jesus offended. But this did not stop them.

One of the most active preachers of the good news was Stephen, who was stoned to death, becoming the first Christian martyr. And one of the most active persecutors of Christians was Saul, a devout Jew who saw the Jesus movement as a devilish threat to God’s people. Yet one night on the road to Damascus, Saul was struck by a blinding light from heaven and a voice asked him, “Why do you persecute me?” Unable to see, Saul was instructed to go into Damascus, where he met with a disciple named Ananias, who had been told by God to embrace Saul, even though Saul was an enemy. Ananias laid his hands on Saul and called on God to restore his sight. The scales fell from Saul’s eyes, his sight was restored, and he was baptized.

Saul, eventually renamed Paul, became an influential and persistent missionary on behalf of the good news of Jesus Christ. His own reconciliation with his former enemies became the lens through which he came to understand the power of Jesus’ victory on the cross over the forces of alienation, violence, and division. He taught that in Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the whole world to himself, that in Jesus, different and formerly hostile peoples had come together, and that through the work of Jesus Christ, the entire creation was being renewed. In fact, Paul came to understand that Jesus was himself God, and that the very shape of the new creation was figured in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “From now on,” he argued to the Corinthians,

we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through the Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (II Corinthians 5:16-20).

In the writings and teachings of Paul, as in those of other apostles such as Peter, the work of Christ is continued in the body of Christ—the church, which is seen as the harbinger of the whole creation’s renewal. The new humanity, gathered together from every tribe and nation, is becoming visible in the body of Christ with its many members and gifts. And the obedience of the church to the commandments and teachings of Christ—love for God and neighbor, humble service to others, the embrace of enemies—is an obedience that witnesses to the whole world of the Lordship of the servant Jesus, and of his triumph over the authorities and Powers of the age, even death itself. On the one hand, this way to life and peace and hope and freedom seems like a dramatic new intervention by God into the world—a new covenant or a new testament, as it came to be known. On the other hand, it is clear that Paul understood himself to be a child of Abraham and Sarah, a Jew who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, and a member of God’s covenant people stretching all the way back to Abraham. Paul did not understand himself to be founding a new religion but rather to be offering through Jesus Christ the gift of God’s covenant with Abraham to the whole world. The implications of this radical vision took some time to be sorted out in the church, with many arguments ensuing about whether male converts to the church needed to be circumcised, whether believers needed follow the kosher food rules and all of the holiness codes, and whether it was permitted to eat food offered to idols. But through the mission work of Paul throughout the Mediterranean world and by the faithful witness of the churches he planted, the good news of the gospel spread throughout the world, and God’s covenant was renewed.

ESCHATON

The story of God’s relationship with God’s people and with God’s whole creation extends into the future through the apocalyptic visions that appear throughout the biblical story and especially in the apocalypse or revelation of John—the last book in the Bible. In this story of the future, the decisive victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death is completed as he returns to vanquish all that rebels against God’s rule. The one who triumphs in the apocalypse, however, is not a military ruler but the slain Lamb. The principalities and powers of the world are conquered by the blood of the Lamb. People gather from every tribe and nation to worship the Lamb, people who have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. They declare: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever” (Revelation 7:12).

In the praise and worship of God’s redeemed, the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom and rule of God and of his Messiah—Jesus Christ. In this coming world, the home of God is among mortals, “he will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).

The new Jerusalem is on the way, the apocalypse tells us, a city of peace and joy and eternal life in which there is no gate, no temple and no sun or moon; instead the lamp is the Lamb and the light is God. The river of the water of life flows through the city from the throne of God and the Lamb. Jesus, the Lamb of God, the root and descendant of David, issues the invitation: “The spirit and the bride say, Come. And let everyone who hears say, Come. And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”

Indeed, may we respond: “Even so, come Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22).