Share the Good News Pt. 2
We are in week 5 of a 4-week series on the practice of witness, inspired by the resources from Practicing the Way. Witness is the practice of intentionally opening up our lives to others in love and testifying to the good news of Jesus through our words, our stories, and our way of life in community.
Notes for this week
This is the final week of our Spring term. Have a conversation with your group this week – if you haven’t already – about your plans for the summer. Consider planning to gather a couple times during the summer, maybe in a park or at a brewery, to stay connected.
Sermon Recap
This week, we ended our preaching series on the practice of Witness. After all of the movements of the first four weeks (begin with love, learn hospitality, partner with the Holy Spirit, share your faith), there are still questions left to be answered: what exactly is the gospel, and how are we supposed to share it?
Many of us know a straightforward expression of the gospel, like the “wordless book”, that usually begins by convincing someone of the problem of sin. But, in our generation, most people no longer hold an assumed worldview that acknowledges a divine God, life after death, objective moral truth or, importantly, objective sin. This leaves many people for whom “Jesus died for your sins" is essentially a meaningless statement. What then do we do?
When we see how Jesus engaged people in the gospel of John, we see another way forward. Jesus – in spite of being introduced in this gospel as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” – rarely led with the idea of sin in his conversations. Instead, He seemed to be constantly identifying the barrier between people and life with God, and began his work in their lives by taking that barrier down.
Jesus works to take away the ignorance and pride of Nicodemus by explaining that he must be born again. Jesus takes away the shame of the woman at the well by seeing her and not rejecting her, offering living water. He takes away the sickness of the man at the pool of Bethesda, offering him an identity no longer defined by his disease.
When John the Baptist says that Jesus will “take away” the sin of the world, he doesn’t use the word that would normally be used in a conversation about atonement – as in I Peter 2:24. Instead, he uses a simpler word – airo – which means to remove or take away.
The gospel writer uses “airo” in describing how Jesus commanded the temple be cleared, how the sick man should take away his pallet, and how the stone should be removed from the tomb of Lazarus, each time removing a barrier between people and full life with God. This reframes our understanding: Jesus isn't only forgiving sin; he is actively dismantling whatever keeps people from life with God.
All of Jesus' individual encounters — lifting shame, restoring outcasts, healing the sick — were signs pointing forward to the place where he removes the one barrier none of us can clear on our own. It is at the cross where we see Jesus take away the sin and brokenness that separates us from God, at the cost of his own life.
In the end, all these individual moments help us see the final moments. Jesus takes away the power of death at the cross. And He takes away the power of death through his resurrection. But the “one who takes away” will himself never be taken away.
Practice for the Week Summer!
As semesters end and summer begins, go into your summer with the intention of being a witness. Invite the Spirit to help you listen (and keep listening) to see what barriers may be in the way of someone else coming to know Jesus. As you have opportunity, allow God to use you – your presence, your actions, and your words – to respond in the love of Jesus.
You don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to know how to get from their story to the cross in one conversation. That's not your job. Your job is to love them, to listen, to stay present — and to trust that the same Spirit who was at work before you arrived will still be at work after you leave. We trust Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away sin, to do what only He can do.