Whose Story Is This?

As I was reading the end of Luke’s gospel (24: 36-49)and Peter’s speech in Solomon’s Portico (Acts 3:11-5) this weekend, I began to ponder the question above. For Jesus of Nazareth in his ministry, his acceptance of suffering and execution, and after his resurrection from the dead, his whole mortal experience is clearly that of an actor in God’s story.¹ He is the Son obedient to the will of the Father (Lk. 22:42), speaking the words his Father commands (Jn. 14:10). The resurrected Jesus iterates to his disciples, “Everything must be fulfilled that was written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms…..The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” (Lk. 24: 44-47).

Now, there is much in scripture to support these statements attributed to the risen Christ, but to make a fine point, there is nothing in Scripture that definitively points to the Son of Man, Messiah, or Christ….terms conspicuously absent in the OT. Yes, God did tell Moses that God would raise up another prophet from the people (Dt. 18:15) which could apply to any number of men. The prophet Isaiah did point to a virgin birth (7:14), a child born, a son given (9:6), a servant leader to Jews and Gentiles (49:6-7), who will suffer rejection and death (52:13- 53:12). And Hosea did envision a rising of the people two days after being torn to pieces ( Hos. 6:2). But really, the fine points were not self-evident from scripture until Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”(Lk. 24:45) The story that Jesus acted in and fulfilled seems to have been Jesus’ story only as part of God’s grand story of God’s continuing steadfast relationship first with God’s chosen people and now “to all nations”. (Lk. 24:47)

Yet it seems to me that the greatest story ever told that launched a world-wide faith in God’s salvation of humankind through faith in the risen Christ, the story we read and reread every year during the Easter season through Pentecost is not God’s story. God isn’t telling it. Nor is God’s principal actor, Jesus, telling it. God had already told God’s story through Abraham, Moses, the prophets and finally the Son of Man, only to be rejected by the people God loved.

So, perhaps we might ask again, whose story is this? Who is telling this story and what are they reporting? Is it theology or something much more tangible, wholly mortal and historical? Isn’t this story, at its base, the simple testimony of witnesses to the most amazing, incredible series of events in all of human history? I think of the women who could not keep quiet, notwithstanding the enormous personal risk. I think of Peter and John who could not honor the Council’s demand that they keep silent, risking imprisonment and death. “We are witnesses!”, Peter shouted from Solomon’s portico. At the end of John’s gospel the scribes report, “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.”

These are not the statements of Greek philosophers, theologians or apologists who teased out the rational sense of Christ as the culmination of all truth and wisdom in the cosmos. These are statements of simple human beings who insisted that they were there, they saw, they heard and knew their eyes and ears were not deceiving them. We are witnesses. These are not prophets visited by the Holy Spirit in visions and dreams. This story actually happened. You had better believe it, because it is true. This is our story, and what’s more, we made sure it has all been written down.

It seems reasonable to assume that these men and women who told this story likely had no idea what to make of this story but were utterly compelled to tell it, proclaim it, and suffer both persecution and death for their efforts. Now, that effort was likely the work of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. But the story we read is the story of these witnesses to events that happened, incredible as they may seem. And when we retell this story as we have been doing for two thousand years, we are witnessing ourselves to the veracity of the story, proclaiming its truth because we know it to be true. In a meaningful way, then, the story becomes our story. So, perhaps when someone asks the question, “Whose story is this?”, I might answer, “It’s my story.” Thanks be to God.

1. In the introduction to Joel Green’s massive commentary, , The Gospel of Luke, Eerdmans, 1997, the author argues persuasively that the gospel’s primary focus is on God and the fulfillment of God’s ancient purpose, and therefore can be considered an account of the life of Jesus in only a secondary sense.