From Resident Aliens

So much of the journey of faith is thought to be movement from the abstract to the personal. Growth is not about understanding a principle or a set of beliefs. Faith is about seeing yourself within a living, developing story. A few weeks into Lent, I offer this quote to consider.

“Early Christians, interestingly, began not with creedal speculation about the metaphysics of the Incarnation-that is, Christology abstracted from the Gospel accounts. They began with stories about Jesus, about those whose lives got caught up in his life. Therefore, in a more sophisticated and engaging way, by the very form of their presentation, the Gospel writers were able to begin training us to situate our lives like his life. We cannot know Jesus without following Jesus. Engagement with Jesus, as the misconceptions of the first disciples show, is necessary to understand Jesus. In a sense, we follow Jesus before we know Jesus. Furthermore, we know Jesus before we know ourselves.”
                                                                                  (pg. 55)