19th Century oil painting entitled 'John Knox Preaching Before the Lords of the Congregation' by Sir David Wilike
Now let’s see if we can come to a clearer understanding of the word behind the English word preach-preacher-preaching. As I said before, the Greek word is kerygma.
In today’s world, perhaps the best way to get a handle on this word is
to consider a ‘news flash’ rather than an incident of preaching as we have come
to know it – or a homily.
Preaching a
sermon or homily is vastly different from heralding or proclaiming the good
news. The sermon is delivered (as they
used to say) ‘six feet above criticism’ from a special box mounted high on a
wall or from a raised dais or a lectern on a platform; it is a one-way
communication that is often claimed to be ‘inspired’ by God; it countenances no
comment, question or request for clarification; the hearer’s role is to listen
silently and attentively and apply the ‘lesson’ to one’s life. Heralding the good news of Jesus doesn’t
follow this patter in any way.
Try to imagine
a world with no mass transport, no mass communication, no fixed-line or mobile
telephone networks, no electricity, no broadcast systems of any kind like we
have today. When an important announcement
had to be made, other methods had to be used to get the message out to the
people who needed to hear it.
One way of
doing this was to sound trumpets to get people’s attention and draw them to a
venue to hear what the king (for instance) had to say. In Australia currently, energy drink company
V has a television advertisement for their hire business. You can hire a Jacuzzi truck. The Ad shows the truck with a ‘herald’
perched in the back blowing a trumpet (not very well I might add) and then making
the pronouncement “Jacuzzi … Truck!”
That is one idea of a herald and heralding the news.
You may prefer
to think of the announcement of Jesus’ birth as recorded in the gospels: the
angel pronounces, “Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy…”
Another way was
to put the message into the hands of a runner who would physically run to the
required destinations and deliver the message.
The modern
Athens Marathon commemorates the run of the soldier
Pheidippides from a battlefield at the site of the town of Marathon, Greece, to
Athens in 490 B.C. Legend has it that Pheidippides
delivered the momentous message "Niki!" ("victory"), then
collapsed and died.
Both of these can be described as using a ‘herald’ – which is a good translation of the Greek word kerygma. Most ancient civilisations used these methods to deliver a ‘news flash’. It was known among the Greeks, the Romans – and ancient Israel. Hebrew prophet Habakkuk records that, “Then the Lord answered me and said, ‘Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run’.” (Habakkuk 2:2) Later English versions of this verse put it, “Record the vision; write it down so that a herald may run with it.”
These images, I
suggest, fit well with the record of the four gospels. The angel (literally,
‘messenger’) heralded Jesus’ birth and John the Baptist heralded the public
ministry of Jesus and the beginning of the good news of the kingdom of God.
In addition, Jesus
is the herald, the runner. And he not
only carries the message (the good news), he is the message; he not only declares the message (the good news),
he lives the message; people not only
hear the message (the good news), they see
it and experience it.
And what is
that message – that good news? The
kingdom of God is here, present, touchable, in your face; and the kingdom of
God is open to all who will receive Jesus.
Remember these words from the beginning of John’s gospel:
There came a man,
sent from God, whose name was John. This
man came as a witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might
believe through him. He was not himself
the light, but was here that he might bear witness of the light. There was the true light which, coming into
the world, enlightens every man. He was
in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know
him. He came to his own and those who
were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he
gave the right to become children of God – to those who believe in his
name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God.
John (The
Baptist as he was known) heralded the good news of Jesus’ coming into the world
as “The Light of the world” (‘he came as
a witness that he might bear witness of the light, but he was not that light’). Jesus, as “The Light of the world”, heralded
the good news of the entry into that world of the kingdom of God and of how his
creation can enter into and experience that kingdom: they have the right to
become children of God by spiritual birth.
As far as I can
tell, Jesus didn’t say, ‘this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached’. I believe he made a decree that, “There shall
be heralded, this good news of the kingdom, in all the habitable earth for a
testimony to all the nations and then shall come the end.” Clearly his intention was that this heralding
of the good news would not stop with him, but would go on indefinitely until
his desired end has been achieved.
In Matthew 4:23
and 9:35, Jesus wasn’t preaching the church’s gospel; he was heralding the
inauguration – by his words and by his actions – his Father’s kingdom on planet
earth. And his actions included healing the
sick, raising the dead, and identifying with the common people against the
religious leaders – and against their soon-to-be-defunct protocols for
justification and redemption.
Mark 1:14 has
Jesus coming “into Galilee heralding the good news of the kingdom of God. And Luke 16:15-16 actually tells us that, until
John the Baptist came along, what was heralded was The Law and the Prophets
(the Old Testament) but, since then, what is being heralded is the good news of
the kingdom of God – and people are pressing to get in. No-one – not even the best of the Pharisees –
can be justified by the Law and the Prophets.
It is what it is, and it always will be, but it cannot justify; it
cannot make one righteous – right with God.
The Pharisees
think they’re ‘in’ because they are the custodians of the Law and the Prophets
but they’ve missed it. The common
people, who can’t imagine being ‘in’ because they don’t measure up to the
Pharisees’ standards, can not only be ‘in’ but be children of God, ‘born’ by
the will of the Father and members of the kingdom of God and His
household. This is a ‘wooohooo’ moment.
This is the good
news that Jesus ran with; this is the
good news that Peter was commissioned to take to the Jews; this is the good news that Paul was commissioned to take to the
Gentiles; this is the good news that
was to be heralded first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, then in the
farthest parts of the world; this is
the good news that Philip gave to the Ethiopian and who, it would seem, took it
back home.
[If you can
cope with a short digression for a moment, think again about these words from
John 1: “But as many as received him, to them he gave the
right to become children of God – to those who believe in his name, who were
born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God.” This is God’s ecclesia – God’s
household. Those who welcome Jesus and
fully believe in Him have the right to become children of God and they are born
(obviously a second birth) not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of
the will of man, but of God and of the will of God. On the other hand, the ‘church’ is born of
blood (sometimes even boasting in the fact), born of the will of the flesh,
born of the will of man, not born of God nor of the will of God. And one of the strangest and saddest bits of
the church’s gospel is that it preaches receiving Jesus as ‘accept Jesus into
your heart’ by praying the so-called “sinners’ prayer” in order to be born again
and become a child of God – a pathetic piece of nonsense.]
However …
Let's pick up from here next time.
Cheers,
Kevin.
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