he narrates salvation into being

from eugene peterson’s introduction to the good news story of john the disciple…

In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God is presented as speaking the creation into existence. God speaks the word and it happens: heaven and earth, ocean and stream, trees and grass, birds and fish, animals and humans. Everything, seen and unseen, called into being by God’s spoken word.

In deliberate parallel to the opening words of Genesis, John presents God as speaking salvation into existence. This time God’s word takes on human form and enters history in the person of Jesus. Jesus speaks the word and it happens: forgiveness and judgment, healing and illumination, mercy and grace, joy and love, freedom and resurrection. Everything broken and fallen, sinful and diseased, called into salvation by God’s spoken word.

For, somewhere along the line things went wrong (Genesis tells that story, too), and are in desperate need of fixing. The fixing is all accomplished by speaking — God speaking salvation into being in the person of Jesus. Jesus, in [John’s] account, not only speaks the word of God; he is the Word of God.

Keeping company with these words, we begin to realize that our words are more important than we ever supposed. Saying “I believe,” for instance, marks the difference between life and death. Our words accrue dignity and gravity in conversation with Jesus. For Jesus doesn’t impose salvation as a solution; he narrates salvation into being through leisurely conversation, intimate personal relationships, compassionate responses, passionate prayer, and — putting it all together — a sacrificial death.

We don’t casually walk away from words like that. (The Message Devotional Bible)

I love how Eugene describes Jesus and his salvation work: “he narrates salvation into being through leisurely conversation, intimate personal relationships, compassionate responses, passionate prayer, and — putting it all together — a sacrificial death.”

It’s a striking way to think about it, isn’t it?

Jesus is the Word, his life telling the story of salvation as he lives it out, creating salvation for us. And it seems to me, as his disciples who pick up the mantle of bringing his story of salvation to the world, that we do so in the same way. We narrate his salvation in our time, where he has placed us, through leisurely conversation, intimate personal relationships, compassionate responses, and passionate prayer. And we put this all together by dying to ourselves, and living for Jesus and for others, taking up our cross daily, and following him for the sake of the lost (Luke 9:23).

Huh.

How true.

We don’t casually walk away from words like this.