Which Jesus. . .

A letter to the editor in a recent Living Lutheran, official periodical of the ELCA, made the assertion that "we don't worship and pray to the historical Jesus; rather, we worship the resurrected, universal Christ..."  There was no clarification or correction from the editor.  So, we can presume that this accords with official ELCA teaching.  On an ecumenical Lutheran forum, an ELCA pastor asserted this:  "Millions of Christians believe Christ was crucified and rose from the dead. There's no evidence whatsoever that it actually happened."   

Everyone probably already knows how this business of the Jesus of history and the Christ became an issue, the presumption being that we cannot know much at all, if anything, about the Jesus of history because what we have in Scripture is a cleansed, idealized, and politicized Christ.  That is old news.  It sounds like some kind of arcane theoretical statement.  It may seem like this is the dry debate stuff of academics pondering things that have little affect on the folks in the pew.  But read this again.

A layman, presumedly since he did not identify himself as a pastor, now insists that the historical Jesus has no relation to the Christ whom we worship and to whom we pray.  A pastor of the ELCA, presumedly in good standing on their roster, has publicly stated that Christian belief exists without evidence.  In other words, both sides of the pew are saying that history, fact, and event are divorced from belief and faith.  It may be true, though we have no evidence, yet we worship and pray to what we believe is true.  This is the emptiness of modernity and its separation of faith from history, truth from fact, and belief from reality.  Is it no wonder that such churches are as empty as their Gospel -- or should be!  When the Word made flesh is divorced from the Word that is written, both are less than what they claim and we have nothing but imagined truth.

What is most distressing is when you see that the debates of academics has filtered down into the pew and become the ground, or lack of foundation, for the faith of the faithful.  Sadly, academia has become the realm of the specialist who is an expert in some small matter and who then sees everything through the lens of that small matter but who fails to see the whole.  Pastors are not specialists and should never become such.  We are not given the privilege of wondering about things but instead are called to ponder the mystery of the faith:  Christ was born, Christ lived, Christ died, Christ rose again, and Christ now sits at the right hand of the Father.  All of this for us and our salvation.  

We ponder this not as some intellectual curiosity but as the message given to us to proclaim -- not as a belief divorced from history but as that event that all history looked toward and by which all history has been transformed.  It is the cosmic message that is bigger than all of us but the personal message that rescues, redeems, and restores the lost one soul at a time.  It is the Word that delivers the guilty from sin, the dying from death, and the lost to a destiny of hope.  This is not imagined by the mind but planted in history that it might be planted in us by the Spirit.  It is not a faith divorced from fact but built upon the facts fully attested by witnesses.  Those who are enlivened by this Spirit to the life that Christ won and bestows become witnesses -- not to the event but to the Word.

What appeal does a belief divorced from history have?  Duh, we live in a world which has disowned its own past and invented its own history.  Of course this appeals to a world in which belief is merely personal feeling and conviction and truth is one person wide and deep.  But this can never become the same as the faith of the fathers, built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles and evangelists, and delivered to us as the truth that is true whether we believe it or not and efficacious -- delivering to us that which it speaks.  Lutherans beware!  This is not the faith the Reformers stood for.  Do not settle for such a groundless truth.  This is not our legacy and this is not our confession.