In 2008, Time magazine published an article entitled “10 Ideas that are Changing the World.” On this list were such ideas as “The End of Customer Service,” “The Post-Movie-Star Era,” and “Geoengineering.” For some, one of the more surprising ideas to make this list was number ten: “Re-Judaizing Jesus.” The article cites New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt University as saying, “if you get the [Jewish] context wrong, you will certainly get Jesus wrong.” For some, the article was surprising because, it was claimed, the church and biblical scholars have always known that Jesus was Jewish, and this wasn’t really a new idea. But, of course, that’s missing the point. The idea that was changing the world wasn’t merely reminding ourselves that Jesus was Jewish but rather that to understand Jesus, we must understand him in his first-century Jewish context, and this, unfortunately, is something the church failed to do for nearly two millennia. The history of the church’s reading of Scripture makes New Testament theology sound more like Greek philosophy than Jewish theology, and the project that is currently underway in New Testament studies, and for which we should all give thanks to God, is an attempt to reread and rediscover the New Testament in this distinctly Jewish light. 

 And I begin the sermon this way this evening because part of the process of coming to this understanding as readers of Scripture is coming to the realization that for most of us, in some important ways, this is not our story. Certainly, the prophets said that when God finally acted on behalf of the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that action would be a blessing to the whole world. Indeed, in the promise made to Abram, he is told, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:1–3).

But there is a tension here. On the one hand, God has chosen to bless this one family, one people, amongst all the other families and peoples of the world, and yet when God acts to bless this one family, this one people, that action will be a blessing for all the other families and peoples of the world. This means that the story of the Bible, from cover to cover, is a distinctly Jewish story that, at its climax, resounds with blessings for the entire world. And that’s what we’re here to celebrate tonight. We’re gathered here to celebrate that God in his grace decided not to bless only one family on the earth but every family. 

Listen again to how Isaiah describes the way the blessing of Israel will become a blessing to all the world: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” You see, the imagery here is light and darkness, like it is so often throughout the Bible. When God acts, the Gentiles will be in darkness, but over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a great light will shine, and the Gentiles will be drawn to that light. 

We often read this type of imagery and language differently than it was intended. The imagery here isn’t that God will bless Jews and Gentiles alike, but that God will bless the Jewish people and that Gentiles are welcome to come and join themselves to that blessing. Therefore, in the first century of the church, some Jewish-Christian believers insisted that Gentiles be circumcised because that’s what the imagery of the prophets suggested, or at least that’s how it was most commonly read. The Gentiles were free to enjoy the blessings of the peo