Allow me to wax philosophical for a second on the topic of history. I would argue that most modern Christians, especially those of us labeled "Evangelicals", place a great importance on the science of history in determining the value of scripture. Think about it for a second. Normally, when I ask an Evangelical Christian "What does it mean that Scripture is true (or authoritative)," she likely answers that Scripture is reliable and actually happened. These two criterion sound awfully familiar to criterion in the field of historical science when judging the validity of documents. There are even current books which try to argue the validity of biblical documents within the (very limited) boundaries of historical science. Now, I generally deter such assumptions on the basis that the Scriptures were not written with the historical sciences in mind, but rather, were written as theological documents describing the relationship between God and the world, and should be read as such.
However, in light of Troy's sermon, I would like to shed light on the origins of historical science and a man named G.W.F. Hegel...lovers of philosophy might know this name. Some know Hegel as the father of modern history, but others such as myself know Hegel as Kierkegaard's locus of frustration. Assuming that you will afford me a very general gloss of Hegel in a short statement (for sake of space and time), Hegel introduced the idea of historical relativity into modern thinking. Historical relativity is a technical way of saying that people's culture in the past was different than the culture of the present, or, in other words, that culture has changed and progressed throughout history. Upon encountering Hegel's teaching, Kierkegaard soon realized the danger of seeing the world through the eyes of historical relativity. According to Kierkegaard, if Hegel is correct, then Christ becomes buried in the past as a man who said and did some things, but is not present with us now.
As an Evangelical, I believe that the burying of Christ in history becomes all the more evident in the celebration of one of our most intimate moments with God: the Lord's Supper. We as Evangelicals tend to overemphasize the word "remember" in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Yet, in doing so, are we simply relegating the sacrifice of Christ to a past event which has no place amongst us now? As Kierkegaard writes, "We dare not wash our hands-at least we cannot do it, except as Pilate did; we are not spectators and beholders of a past event, we are in fact accomplices in a contemporary event." (Kierkegaard, Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, "The Night In Which He Was Betrayed") When we remember Christ in the Lord's Supper, we are not dragging up memories from distant history that are irrelevant to the present. The reality of what Christ did does not rest in historical facts, but it rests within what each one of us embody as human beings.
Thus, to "remember" Christ means to seek Christ in the present. As Troy said, many of us have experienced Christ in our lives, which means that we have had contact with the living God within our present circumstances. Accordingly, I believe that memory hearkens a better understanding of God's reality than what is offered up by the historical sciences. Many of us involved in academia rely upon the sciences to help us explain God, and yet, in doing so, we allow our scientific methods to edge Christ out from our immediate present. To be a human means to have a story and stories are collected into our memory (for deeper insight into this topic, see Augustine's discussion of memory in the Confessions). In light of what Troy shared this morning, I want to encourage you to celebrate your memory. Seek God in your past and present, and see how Scripture comes alive in the memory of your stories. Scripture is not true just because it happened in the past, but especially that it happens now. The truth of the Lord's Supper is not that we know of a man who died once, but that we know of a man who dies for us this very instant, and that He calls us to die with Him this very instant. If we believe that Christ is raised from the dead, then we believe that He is with us in our memory and is living in our stories this very instant. Yet, if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless, and so is your faith (1 Corinthians 15:14).
Thank you Troy for yet another challenging and thought-provoking message.
