Witnesses

After Jesus’ resurrection, he had walked with two of his followers on the road to Emmaus, but they didn’t recognize him. When they arrived in Emmaus, they invited him to stay and eat with them. And as he broke bread, they recognized him and he vanished. The two got up and immediately went back to Jerusalem to share their experience with Jesus’ eleven disciples and the other followers who were still gathered there. The group was exuberant because Jesus had appeared to Simon Peter. “The Lord has risen indeed!” And the two shared their day with Jesus on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of bread. It was while they were still talking about this that Jesus himself stood among them.

And they were shocked and scared. See, they didn’t REALLY know what was happening. They thought they were seeing a spirit, because he was not bound by the laws of matter. He appeared, from no where, among them.

N.T. Wright writes about their reaction, “The disciples knew all about ghosts, visions, hallucinations. The ancient world and its literature are full of stories about that kind of thing. It was natural for Jesus’ followers, still stunned and shaken by all that had happened, to suppose that they were ‘seeing things.’…”

Jesus offers them two signs that he is not spirit only. Go ahead, touch me, he says. He shows them his hands and his feet and invites them to touch him….He’s real. He’s solid. He’s not a ghost….

Then, he says, “I’m hungry. What do you have around here to eat?” And he eats a piece of baked fish. “Ghosts don’t do that. Jesus’ risen body is like nothing anyone has imagined before. On the one hand, it can be touched, it can eat. On the other hand, people don’t instantly recognize him, and he can come and go… [This body belongs in both dimensions of God’s world: heaven and earth.] Nobody in that world would have made all this up. They had stories about ghosts and visions and this is quite unlike any of them.” (Wright)

Jesus is a new creation. His body is like the old, but not the same. Jesus is resurrected, not a spirit only, not a resuscitation of the body he had. But a new, resurrected body. Episcopal priest, Michael Marsh says, “The resurrected life of Christ, it seems, is revealed in and through the created order. It is not, however, bound by the created order. Rather, the resurrected body and life of Christ unite the visible and invisible, matter and spirit, humanity and divinity. On the one hand Jesus has a real body. On the other hand it is not subject to the natural laws of time and space. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. It is a new and different reality.”

The resurrected Jesus shares with those gathered there how the Scriptures have been fulfilled in him.

“The Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,” but that’s not the end of things. “That repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

Jesus didn’t appear to them to reassure them. Jesus didn’t appear to them because they were special. Jesus appeared to them to send them. You are witnesses to the fulfillment of Scripture, he tells them. The prophets said one would come who would redeem – I am this one, and it is done. You know me. You’ve seen me. But that’s not the point. You are my witnesses. You have a story to tell. And that story is ours to tell, too. But, sometimes I think we make the excuse that we don’t know what to say, we haven’t been trained.

In 2014, Kevin Spacey gave a keynote at Content Marketing World on storytelling. And he would agree that the most important part of us telling our story is that we spend some time thinking about what the story we have to tell is. “It’s important to ask yourself, “What story do you want to tell?” he says. Everything will fall in line ‘if you start with what the result is going to be.’…. And he goes on to propose three pillars that must be present in every good story.”

First, every good story must have conflict, something at stake, a reason to be told.

Second, every good story must be authentic. Spacey says, “Start small and start with what you know: answer your audience’s questions with internal knowledge and be a problem solver for your customers.”

Third, he says, remember to have an audience. “Don’t create content for content’s sake, and don’t let your content exist in a vacuum. You need to work for your audience in order for them to work for you – this means creativity, distribution, measurement, and iteration. In today’s content ecosystem, you can no longer throw up a blog post and walk away.”

Kevin Spacey went on to talk about why the show “House of Cards” was sold to Netflix rather than a major television network. The reason was that every major network required a pilot episode, while Netflix “didn’t ask them to try and squeeze all the key components of the story into a forced 45 minute segment.”

Chase Neinken, a writer on content marketing reflected on Kevin Spacey’s keynote, “Your content marketing efforts should reflect this strategy!” he writes, “Don’t try and pack every piece of pertinent information into one post because of an obligation to the brand. Start with what you want to say and figure out the most authentic, engaging way you can deliver that to an audience.”

Marketers think about how they will tell their story. We have a story to tell that changes the world, one person at a time. Jesus says, “You are witnesses of these things.” So, we need to think about how we will tell our story.

What can we learn from the secular world about telling our story? The first pillar was “conflict” – there must be a reason to tell this story, something at stake. Just telling people that Jesus is risen isn’t a good story. What difference does it make? Why does it matter to you? What difference has Jesus’ teaching and way made in your life? How does being a part of the body of Christ shape you? How does the church support you? The second pillar is authenticity. Tell your own story. How do you choose? Rev. Michael Marsh says, Think about a time in your life when you lost track of time. I don’t mean you forgot what time it was, but that you were so awake, so present, that you entered a new world. Think about a time when life seemed more real than it ever had and you touched or tasted life in a way never before. Recall a moment when your heart opened, softened, and you knew you were somehow different. Remember that day when you sensed something new was being offered you; possibilities that you did not create for yourself. They just opened up. Reflect on that moment when you realized that you were ok and could again start to live. Those are the moments when Christ opens our minds to understand. They are moments of awe and wonder that leave us in sacred silence. They fill our eyes with tears. We weep, not from sorrow or pain, but the water of new life. They are the moments in which we say, “I never want this to end. I don’t want to leave this place.” This is resurrected life. The one who is fully alive and risen, the Christ, is calling you and me to see and recognize him, to discover our new life. Those moments are the ones to share. They are your moments. They are authentic.
The third pillar to good storytelling is having an audience. Who are you called to be a witness to? You don’t need to know the whole Bible or tell every story in the Bible. You don’t need to pack every piece of pertinent information into one conversation. Every day, every person who comes in contact with you comes to know your story as you live a life that is shaped by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

This is your story. You are a witness. Thanks be to God. Amen.

https://insights.newscred.com/3-crucial-principles-of-storytelling-you-can-learn-from-kevin-spacey-house-of-cards/