I’ve started so I’ll finish. A phrase from the Mastermind quiz but maybe also a biblical / God phrase? ‘When God began to create / in the beginning’ (dependent on how it is translated – the first one I understand to be the better of the two) relates to the end – a new heaven and a new earth; new creation.
Jesus words on the cross – ‘It is finished’… and yet Paul says ‘making up for what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ’; Paul claims that the gospel (good news message) had been proclaimed throughout the world. Finishes that are real; but somehow they are unfinished finishes that have to be supplemented, not by something different, but by the same flow. So where am I going with this?
There is an end… new creation. How do we move toward it? The pivotal moment of all moments is that of the death and resurrection of Jesus. He is the firstfruits of all that is to come. His resurrection is the guarantee for us and for creation that we are not staring down the barrel of nuclear obliteration but of participating in the rebirth of all things. Paul saw his sufferings as participating in the sufferings of Christ. Not suffering for the sake of it but to release the blessings of heaven for the body of Christ. His life was not a ransom for others but a means of releasing others into the benefits of the ransom that comes through the cross; thus enabling there to be a proclamation to the whole earth (or rather the oikoumene of the Roman Empire). I believe the Pauline gospel (and that term is not inappropriate as he terms it ‘my gospel’ in Rom. 2:16) is on the way to significant recovery, a message that the death of Jesus on the cross initiated a global transformation with a gracious invite to join the movement. (Maybe we can summarise the message as ‘Jesus is Lord and there is a movement of those liberated from the power of sin that you can be baptised into’?)
I have no idea how this all works out. Times and events are not what Scripture whets our appetite with, but direction and process. ‘To’ the ends of the earth and ‘being witnesses’ through the power of the Spirit to the new creation that we see.
Landing this post…
I am writing this post as a small addition to the former ones on ‘Europe’. The place where Paul’s gospel had been proclaimed (and later infiltrated and subsumed by Imperial sovereignty) has an offer being given to it. It is found (as always) in the desert, the place where symbolically the powers of darkness dwell – hence the lack of fruitfulness there. Paul’s work is ‘finished’, but the final word of Acts is ‘unhindered’ (ἀκωλύτως). We have a responsibility. And oh yes there is a Jerusalem aspect too. Not one of a king dictating over the whole world, but one that witnesses that the prince of peace died there so that reconciliation – no Jew nor Greek (civilised Roman world) divide, nor slave nor free (economic), nor male and female (creation language superseded). A place of reconciliation. Now that is a dream.
A man imprisoned saw something (Rev. 21). If he could maybe we can dream also? And maybe we will see it if we can see beyond any prison doors (most of which are in our minds) that might seem to contain us.
I am a dreamer that Europe will find a way and humbly serve beyond her borders – even to the places that carry the testimony of recent waves of ‘revival’. There are worlds beyond the ‘whole world’ that Paul focused on. This is the destiny of Europe. To the finish. A perspective.