“20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:20-28 ESV)
The religion of Christ, Christ the first Christian, manages a strategic alliance between two ways of thinking. First, that Man—the Enemy—cannot be reasoned into sanity, into allegiance, into fraternity. Second, that Man—the Beloved—is expected to make their own decisions, to decide for Christ, to convert to the Gospel. Somehow we are not sitting around waiting for the enemy to come to his or her senses, nor are we looking for a logical explanation as to why we this day are at war.
War with the vast legions—had we known in advance, we might never have gone down this principled trail—of inimical spirits now roused, now belligerent, now drunkenly swaying and ostentatiously offended. War with the mere cohorts of friendly spirits now reluctantly roused, now bellicose themselves, now soberly hunkered down and lancing forth, chip on shoulder, attentive and panoramic gaze.
That is, the Christian rises up to do for his or her people what they cannot do for themselves: to go to her or his cross, to live a saint, to befriend as a compassionate ally. Hurried, yet listening; leader, yet patient witness; distrustful, yet trusting unto betrayal and death. The Christian is betrayed; the wise counsel, trust no one, comes up against the flip-side (at one point Christ said those not against us are for us, at another He said those not with us are against us) that we trust everyone to the end eventually of dying as ones gossiped about or betrayed.
Therefore to Witness is to have a Personal engagement with impossibility, the impossible personal stature or pride of place, the impossible self-corrective or sane or laudable outlay, the impossible pick-oneself-up-by-the-bootstraps: we are sinners and delve into impossible situations, where our composure is tried to the utmost. Christ’s composure was tried to the utmost, and He… He as the first Christian… He had something Unique, the personal Good Work that would solve everything, going to the Cross.
Our Good Work that will solve everything is no less dramatic: each of us, God willing, has the patience and dutiful calm to go to a cross, even if that cross is a matter in our schoolrooms or boardrooms, of acknowledging, yes I know Jesus. We literally are just as heroic as that Man Christ Himself, only His dying has already been done on our behalf. But all lagging ill thoughts and regrets of words spoken and horrified personal endoscopy, all this Encounters a Christ who is all-sufficient. A faith which is tentative yet in the already-not-yet duality. It is after all sufficient. It cheers the sinner to a celebration.
The preacher’s job, then, to shake Man out of his or her comfort zone and show them for what they truly are… this charge meets the theological question: do we assure that Christ loves us before we start to untangle sin, or do we strive for Man to be at the end of his or her rope in futility and forlorn thought, and then introduce Christ? Did we need to know we had a shoulder to cry on before we’d be willing to cry? Or is it that we needed to know we couldn’t do it at all, before we’d be able to see ourselves for what we truly are?