Reading Backward: Finding Christ in the OT John 5:39
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Reading Backward: Finding Christ in the OT John 5:39 Reading Forwards and Backwards Life is a series of complex cause and effect chains that carry on through time, from past to present. Think about your own life. It began with the love (or maybe lust) of your parents … was influenced by siblings, teachers, and friends … likely there were what one friend recently called inflection points, points at which your faith growth curve changed significantly, sometimes a season of rapid increase in Christian maturity, sometimes plateauing or declining … there has been the impact of tragedy and struggle, of blessings and successes, of good decisions and bad ones … and most importantly whether the times were up or down, God has been at work shaping your life . Simple logic would therefore say that we will better understand our current life situation and indeed the way we think, our habits, and our dreams on the basis of what has gone on in our past. It’s why we are so encouraging Peace people to engage in the Discover process of doing a personal timeline to help you gain insight into what God has been teaching and instilling in you over a lifetime. Certainly the influence flow but also the understanding flow is most often from past to present. So if you will, we usually read our lives our forward. But occasionally, also backward. While we cannot change the past, sometimes as a result of a new life lesson or experience we come to interpret our past in a quite different way than we experienced the events at the time. For example, as an older adult having heard lots of stories of others’ family of origin struggles, I have much greater gratitude toward to my childhood now than I did as a child or young adult. Reading my life backwards leads me to say thanks and to interpret even our family weaknesses with much more grace. Similarly when it comes to literature, we normally read forward. As we discussed last week with regard to the Bible, the events and people, the political and spiritual forces of the Old Testament set the stage for Jesus and the events of the New Testament. We will better understand the teachings and actions of Jesus as we learn of the Scriptures that he used, the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament. Further, it’s hard to make sense of the writings of the Apostle Paul unless you understand his thought world which was shaped not only by the work of Jesus but years of study of the Old Testament. That’s why we read the Bible forward and see the strong influence of the Old Testament on the New. But there is also a strong tradition in Christian theology of reading the Bible backwards: of coming to a Christ-centered understanding of the Old Testament by reading it through the lens of the New … through the lens of God’s grace and truth poured out through Jesus Christ. Why We Can Read the Bible Backwards Christians read backwards for two very important reasons. First of all, because Jesus did. He told the religious leaders of his day, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me,” (John 5:39, NIV84) Now let’s be clear. There is no specific mention of a Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus of Nazareth) in the Hebrew Scriptures. It would have been totally not obvious to Jewish Bible experts that Israel’s history, it’s wisdom, and its prophetic heritage was in any way directly connected to this wandering, troublesome rabbi. Yet there it is. Jesus said that as we look at the Old Testament stories and people, we can find him there. So we not only can, but we must read the Bible backwards if we are to grasp the full importance and meaning of the Old Testament. It’s all connected with Jesus. Secondly, we can read the Bible backwards because though there are many human authors, there is a single Divine author who has inspired all 66 books. You can think about it this way. Mostly we’ll read a novel or series of novels “forward,” as one plot element leads to the next. But there are regular occasions in which a skilled author will have us read backwards … giving us elements of the story later that allow us to make sense of earlier events. I asked my son David, a voracious reader, to give me an example of that from a series he has read like Tolkien’s Trilogy of the Rings or Harry Potter. He immediately came up with the example of Harry destroying a book in the Chamber of Secrets. That happens in book 2. But it is not until book six in the series that the reader finds out the greater significance of Harry’ action. Harry’s archenemy is Lord Voldemort and in destroying the book, Harry was extinguishing part of Voldemort’s soul. How can we be sure that what is revealed in book 6 helps explain stuff written in book 2? How do we know that something false isn’t being inserted into the narrative? That’s obvious. It’s because the entire series was written by one author, J.K. Rowling. It’s her story and she can do whatever she wants! It would seem to be a huge violation of the author’s intent to find Jesus in the lives of Israel’s patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After all Moses and whatever other authors and editors God used to give us Genesis were writing about Israel’s “founding fathers” and not about the details of the future Messiah. But if behind the human authors there is a single Divine author who knows the grander story, then it would sense that not only would the Old Testament would help interpret the New Testament which follows, and New will, looking back, help us interpret the Old. Different books, different perspectives and emphases at different points in history, but one Divine revelation in which Scripture interprets Scripture in both directions. Most importantly, we view even the most horrible and bloody events in Israel’s history through the lens of the horror and love of Jesus’ cross. We see a God of love pursuing his people, even if it means wrestling with them through trial and trouble (by the way that’s what Israel’s name mean: “wrestles with God.”) Examples of Backwards Reading 2 Let me give two example of reading the Bible backwards as shared in the remarkable music ministry of Michael Card. The first involves a well known event in the Old Testament of God testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his long promised son, Isaac. Here is how Michael Card reads the story in the light of Jesus: Three days journey to the sacred place A boy and a man with a sorrowful face Tortured yet faithful to God's command To take the life of son with his own hands God will provide a Lamb To be offered up in your place A sacrifice so spotless and clean To take all your sin away Here's wood and fire, where's the sacrifice A questioning voice and the innocent eyes Is the son of laughter who you waited for To die like a lamb to please the Lord A gleaming knife, an accepted choice A rush of wind and an angel's voice A ram in the thicket caught by his horns And a new age of trusting the Lord is born For God has provided a Lamb He was offered up in your place What Abraham was asked to do he has done He's offered his only son Now reading the story in Genesis, it seems that most of the emphasis is on the radical obedience of Abraham going so far as to offer up his son. The New Testament writer to the Hebrews in light of Jesus’ resurrection takes this one step further, that Abraham’s obedience was based on his faith: “He (Abraham) considered that God was able even to raise him (Isaac) from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” (Hebrews 11:19, ESV) But it seems to me that Michael Card goes even further in light of the cross of Christ. That the emphasis is really no longer on Abraham at all. That it is God who shows himself to be faithful to Abraham, to his promise, and to all of humanity. That it is God who acts. It is God who has offered up his Son as the ultimate sacrifice. On the cross, Jesus gives his life for us so that we can forgiveness and life with God. Michael Card does what Jesus told us we should do: read the Bible backwards and see in the story of Abraham and Isaac, God showing to Abraham that he can be trusted to provide the Lamb of salvation. The second example is from what was to be a practice of celebration in the life of ancient Israel: the year of Jubilee as described in Leviticus 25. Every 50 years, Israel was to have a Jubilee year. In that year, the land would be given an extra year of rest from cultivation. Families and clan who had economic difficulties during the previous 5 decades would be given a fresh start: • debts would be cancelled • land that had been sold would returned to the original owners (with the understanding that it all belonged to God anyway) • those who had been sold into slavery would be set free So for ancient Israel, Jubilee was designed to be a year of freedom and restoration.