“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
2 Corinthians 4:4-7
This Easter each of us likely attended resurrection services. I know in heaven it matters that Easter occurred. What message were you treated to? A message about Jesus or a message that was Jesus? This is the defining and dividing line of Christianity which will only grow the division from here on. Do the messengers know about Him, or do they know the message that is Him?
The message that is Jesus was the message of the Apostles. Paul understood that God was glorifying Jesus Christ in Paul and that he was the message as much as the message of Jesus was the message. The Word from the Father is abundant divine life (zoé) and so it cannot simply be spoken, it must be so in the vessel.
This possession by a Spiritual being manifests itself according to 2 Cor 4 as glory out of a jar of clay. Light radiating from the vessel of Christ, testifying to his life by the same light off his face while the vessel of clay explains what the Life is and how to have it. It is this one two punch that makes the apostle message so devastating: what people can see is explained by what people hear, and hell rages against it. The transfiguration of the saint leads to the transformation of the lost to found, and new believer to mature believer. This is because Jesus’ light is the salvation and transformation of the human according to 2 Cor 3.
Or, was your service message about Jesus? Was it a testimony to a past event and a future hope? Was it on the facts and effects of God’s work? Because a message about Jesus is not equal to the message that is Jesus. What Christianity needs desperately is not the story, but the glory. The light streaming off of Jesus’ face shines into the hearts and testifies to the nature of God and brings about transformation right now. Hence risenness is not so much a past tale and a future hope as it is meant to be a now experience. And if the minister does not have the now experience all they have left is the story.
Soon Christ-ianity will be forced to be real in the now moment or rest on its wishes for a future it believes little because it has little. Because transformation is what each of us need with the same desperation which the world emits everywhere. We will choose to emit the Light of hope from our face or our words will increasingly separate from the image we are meant to portray as vessels of Christ. If folks can’t see it, they won’t hear it. And if they can’t hear it they won’t believe it. So we must have it, we must have the Word in our face and out from our face. This is the ministry of the temple and priest that Moses’ glory inaugurated.
