Have you ever wondered if there is any connection between Genesis and Revelation? Are there threads that run from verse to verse; book to book; from beginning to end? To be sure, we need to be careful with this. When these are offered as authoritative, my way or the highway, this is the ONLY way possible, I start to nervously twitch. When such suggestions are just that, proposals to discuss and debate, then I am more than glad to join in the conversation.
The fancy word for finding common thread is a meta-narrative; that is big story. I am compelled by Brian McLaren who has written on this topic. Yet, I also want to add to his understanding and ideas. I think the big narrative of scripture is creation to crisis to community to Christ to church to culmination. Six movements, like a symphony, that are tied thematically and rhythmically together. You don't move linearly from one to the next, but there are riffs and melodies that get integrally interwoven together.
Scripture starts with creation, two creation stories, laid side-by-side with little said about the fact that there is tension between the two. By chapter 3 of Genesis there is crisis, Adam and Eve sink their teeth into a fruit, juice drips off their chins, and crisis becomes an important theme. Creation and crisis keep dancing together in the book of Genesis, then we land in Exodus and suddenly a new melody is added to the mix. We start to hear the refrain of community too. Those three themes keep coming back. In some ways, Exodus is about the creation of community and community in crisis. These three themes play with each other. Moments when community seems strong (like when King David rules) and moments when crisis creeps back into the symphony in times of Exile or prophets who keep on trying to nudge the people of God back to being a faithful community.
In the New Testament, we hear a new set of notes, in Jesus Christ. While I don't think Jesus came to form a new church, that is what happens in Acts. However, it is not as though the themes of creation, crisis, and community are left behind. Instead, the Gospel of John gets it beautifully right when he pens, "In the beginning (creation) was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...he came to his own people and his own people did not receive him (crisis).....but to those who did receive him, he gave the power to become children of God (community). Click here to read the whole passage in this light.
Out of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the community becomes known as the church. But the church is NOT the end. The book of Revelation tells us about the culmination, Scripture tells us in the end, there is a river of life flowing by the throne of God and there are two trees which produce fruit for the healing of the nations. Does that sound familiar? It is creation, crisis overcome, community restored, with Christ our light, and the church packed with people from all nations finding peace, love, and basking in grace. Or, culmination, in short.
Creation to crisis to community to Christ to church to culmination. One way to see an overarching narrative in Scripture. As you listen to a reading in church, where does that narrative fit in the ark? Which themes from the list above to you hear? Which themes would you add? Another way to read Scripture that I pray will provide more than a trace of God's grace!
Blessings ~
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