Witnesses of the Missionary God
Issue 001
FEBRUARY 14, 2018
WRITTEN BY CODY MCMURRIN
A couple weeks ago, Dexter the Peacock created quite the scene at Newark airport when United Airlines denied him entry. The peacock was declared an emotional-support animal, but that didn’t fly with United. It was a bizarre scene, and America loved it. Person after person bore witness to the event. We can’t help it. When we see something bizarre, we have an inborn need to share it.
It’s not just the bizarre we have an itch to share. Kyle Stephens bore witness in a Michigan court to the sexual abuse that began when she was in Kindergarten. She was the first of almost 100 victims to bear witness against the former Olympic gymnastics doctor. Her witness led the way for other victims to feel confident enough to share their own stories and changed the lives of countless others.
John the Baptist was the first to bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. As I read through the very beginning of John's Gospel, it seems to me as if the people long for John to proclaim, “I am here to restore Israel to their rightful place in the world!” But he denies this. He holds himself humbly. John knows he cannot save Israel. He simply bears witness to the Son of God who has come to save the world.
“Long before we imagined being agents of love and grace in our communities, Jesus was at the center of it all.”
We, as the church, are given the opportunity to do the same. It is tempting for us to run in, guns blazing, and try to save the day, but Christ must become more and we must become less. The church is not the people of God who save the day. The church bears witness to a missionary God who reconciles the world to himself and loves every person we lock eyes with.
He took away the sins of the world. He rose from the dead and redeems our world. He works in “that broken person’s plea for help, in that foreclosure across the street, in that Black Lives Matter march for justice, in that domestic abuse shelter, and in the struggle for immigration reform.”*
Long before we imagined being agents of love and grace in our communities, Jesus was at the center of it all: the marginalized being loved, neighbors being cared for, lives being transformed.
God does not give the church a mission to complete. Instead, the missionary God calls us, he calls you, to come alongside him in his work and mission. He calls us to bear witness to it. To shout “Look! God is doing a new thing! He is redeeming the whole world!”
* Fitch, David E.. Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission (Kindle Locations 2992–2993). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition