Amazement followed Jesus wherever he went. The healing of the possessed man in the synagogue, combined with his style of teaching, won him rave reviews:
They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
It’s hard to avoid the subject of evangelism with this week’s passage. We see us how powerfully people reacted to Jesus when he first came on the scene. Looking back on those events from a 2,000-year distance, we’re bound to lose some definition and immediacy. When did we last say, “Wow! What is this teaching? Who is this guy?”
A domesticated Christianity is like lukewarm dish water. It allows us to go through the motions, but doesn’t really get the dishes clean. How can we reinvigorate our faith, our excitement at what God did in Jesus, and what God is doing now through the Holy Spirit working in us? The remedy lies less in talking aboutJesus than talking to Jesus; less observing from the sidelines and more direct experience of the Spirit’s power. We need to put ourselves in the way of experiencing God directly, and then do everything we can to help others into that place.
This Jesus may not be new news to many of us, but we live in a culture in which many people have only dimly heard of him – and their associations with the people bear his name might well be negative. We have a huge opportunity to introduce this guy to people who don’t know much of anything about him.
And what should we tell them? How we experience Jesus. Why we call ourselves Christ followers. What were the moments when he became real for us. Those are incredible stories! If we tell them, they'll plant seeds in the people who hear them. If I heard a story about someone being rescued from despair, or empowered to work for justice, or healed, I’d want to know more about that person.
All we need to do is catalyze a curiosity – and be there when questions are asked. The only two people whose conversion I know I had something to do with saw me center my life around Jesus and his church, and asked a ton of questions. God must have given me good answers (and in one case, amazing healing when I prayed…) The only answers we need to give are our own stories of our own experience. We don’t need to say why God allows suffering – we can say, “I don’t know why – and here’s a time when I felt suffering was answered by God with love,” or “Here’s a time when God worked through me to alleviate someone else's suffering.”
A good start would be to make an inventory of our “God-stories” and dust them off (creating a spiritual timelinecan prime our memory.) I’m not great at this – my sermons are too often declarations of belief instead of stories of transformation. So I will hold myself to this discipline too. Our experiences with God are our richest resource in God’s mission.
When were you last amazed by Jesus? Remember – and tell someone that story. You're just making an introduction - the next move is up to God.
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