For all the twists and turn my religious and spiritual paths have taken, I’ve had a continuing fascination how the New Testament gospels came to be written, and what it was they were trying to address. I am drawing on that fascination as a way of creating and sharing an Easter message. They were written largely out of a time of despair and greatly diminished hope for the second generation of this new religion called “Christianity.” Beginning around the year 70 the anticipated return of their founder had not happened, and the city they regarded as the center of their faith—Jerusalem—had been laid to waste by the Romans.

Out of their despair they created a story that told of the hope and promise the first followers of Jesus felt. They returned to that story as a way of restoring their faith and hope; and in it they included accounts of how their founder still lived on. He didn’t die after all.

I have been thinking on all this in recent days when I find that hope may be hard to find. What is the story of our nation now that we need to recall and tell to keep our hope and vision alive—to not let them die?

However we may or may not relate to the stories told in the New Testament gospels, I think we do well to know why they were written. They were a way of resurrecting hope and commitment when they feared their faith might die. Let’s see what we can learn from them.

 

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