"Memory and Testimony"    Judy Skaggs, UPC

John 20:30-31

This summer as we have been reflecting on how we might rediscover the message of Jesus, we have approached the topic from many different angles. This morning, I want us to think about how the story of Jesus has been told through the years since his life, death, and resurrection, and what that might mean for the way we tell his story.

The life of Jesus has extraordinary significance for us as followers of Christ. One way of putting it is that for Christians, Jesus is the decisive revelation of God. Jesus reveals what can be seen of God in a human life and what a life filled with God’s Spirit looks like. If we were to ask our Jewish friends, they might say that the decisive revelation of God is in the Torah, and for Muslims it would be in the Quran. But for us, that revelation is a person. As Son of God, Jesus reveals God; as the Word made flesh, he embodies what can be known of God in a human life.

As you know, the story of Jesus’ life has been recorded by four Gospel writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each one sees through a different lens, emphasizes different aspects of Jesus’ life, actions, and teachings. But the ultimate reason that these writers recorded the life of Christ is summed up in the brief Scripture lesson for today. This passage is near the end of John’s Gospel.  Read John 20:30-31.

Have you ever tried to picture what happened to followers of Christ during those first weeks and months following Jesus’ death and resurrection? This week, I found myself trying to imagine how it was for them. We have some ideas from the book of Acts and some of Paul’s letters, but we do not know for sure.

Since the earliest disciples were Jews, I assume they kept going to synagogue on Saturday, the Sabbath. But perhaps they also gathered to pray and worship early on Sunday mornings since the first day of the week was when the Lord was resurrected.

They might have prayed and read something from the Hebrew Scriptures – remember that was their Bible. And my guess is that when they gathered, they began to remember – to tell stories. They would probably begin with what each person knew about those last days when their Master was betrayed and died on the cross. And surely someone in the group would know about Jesus appearing after his resurrection.

As weeks and months went by, and the events of Jesus’ last days were not so fresh on their mind, they probably began to talk more about what Jesus did or said when they were with him. One might remember a healing; another would talk about what Jesus taught at a particular time; they might even disagree – no, this is the way I remember it. (Like when my children start remembering our family events!)

We know from the stories of Paul’s journeys in the book of Acts, that the news of Jesus began to spread, and of course, Paul and Barnabas went from place to place forming little churches that met in homes or wherever they could. Paul began to write letters back to these groups to encourage them or to address a problem that they might be having.

But the gospels themselves were not written until the last third of the 1^st century. So my guess is that this oral tradition of remembering and continuing to tell the stories of Jesus played a huge part in keeping the fledging faith alive.

Those who recorded the gospels gathered many memories, and each gospel writer used these stories to tell the story of Jesus in a certain way. As an example, Mark seems to emphasize the actions of Jesus, while Matthew has more of Jesus’ teaching.

But they also recorded what was happening in their communities and in their individual lives as they gave testimony to the significance Jesus had come to have. Their lives had been changed by him. They continued to experience him as a divine presence in their midst. For them, as Matthew writes, he was “Emmanuel” – God with us.

The writings of Marcus Borg suggest that the gospel writers combine both memory and testimony in their gathering of information. Some of what they report is factual, what they remembered about what Jesus said and did, but some of what the gospel writers recorded is a fuller understanding of Jesus that had developed in the decades between his death and the writing of the gospels. In other words, they tell us what Jesus had become in the lives of individuals and communities in which the traditions developed.

Borg also distinguishes between the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus. The former is Jesus before his death; and the latter is what Jesus became after his resurrection. So we might think of the gospels as a combination of pre-Easter memories and post-Easter testimonies.

The gospel writers are often seen as evangelists, not merely as writers whose primary purpose was to record past history. As evangelists, the gospel writers went beyond memory to include fuller understandings and convictions that continued to develop in the early church.

There are many examples of the combination of memory and testimony in the Gospel of John. John was written much later than the other three and has a completely different style. The “I am” statements of Jesus are only found in John – I am the Light of the World, I am the Bread of Life, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, I am the Good Shepherd.  So we might ask – why did none of the other Gospel writers record these sayings? Or could these sayings have come out of the testimony of the community?

Perhaps in a meeting of an early house church, someone said – here is how I now experience Christ. He is like light – I think of his teachings and his words illumine my darkness. Jesus is the light of the world.  Or someone else might testify to Jesus being the “way” for them, or like a “good shepherd.” So that these descriptions of Jesus are actually testimonies to how Jesus had come into someone’s life and changed them.

This is important for us because we must rely on the four gospel writers for their collection of the memories of the life of Jesus. As the verses we read from John said, not everything was written down. But these were written so that we could believe in Christ and have life in his name.

None of us experienced the pre-Easter Jesus – the human being who was a Jewish Rabbi who lived in the first century. Our experience is with the post-Easter Jesus, the Spirit of Christ that is among us and within us.

And like the biblical writers, we can give testimony to how the Spirit of Christ has changed us. For me personally, Jesus seems to work in very subtle ways. I have not been hit with a bolt of lightning and blinded as Paul was on the road to Damascus. I have not heard the voice of Christ as St Joan or Julian of Norwich did. I have not been called to some huge undertaking of justice as Martin Luther King.

No, for me, I just have these moments when I realize that I feel differently about someone. My heart has been softened or I know that I don’t hold any bitterness where I did before. And then somehow I know that I could not have done that for myself. Only the spirit of Christ within me could have brought this healing. I experience Jesus as light, as way and truth and life.

Karl Barth, probably the greatest 20^th century theologian, was once asked for his testimony, and he replied very simply, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

Our testimony does not have to be complicated. One of my favorite ways of putting in simply came from something I read about Huston Smith’s mother. When asked to summarize her faith she said, “We are in good hands. Let us take care of each other.”

It is an interesting exercise to reflect on what your testimony about Christ would be. Maybe you have never really thought about it or tried to put it into words. We can be grateful that members of the early church passed along their memories and their testimonies about their life in the presence of the Risen Christ.

Friends, let us continue in our conversation about Jesus. It really began long ago, and we have just jumped into the middle of it – a conversation that included memories, struggles, conflicts, meaning, praise, testimony. This unending conversation is perhaps the most important one we will ever have, for Jesus Christ is for us the decisive revelation of God – of what can be seen of God’s character and passion in a human life. Thanks be to God. Amen.