Jesus.
Polite applause.
Is it 12:00 yet? I’m really hungry today.
Have you ever had to introduce an important speaker at a meeting but you didn’t really know them? You had a bio or a curriculum vitae, but you had no history or relationship with them. Try as you might, it is really hard to connect an audience with a speaker when you don’t know the speaker.
If you haven’t had that experience, you might have been a speaker in such a circumstance. You cringe as the introduction seems more like a canned reading and lacks anything truly personal or warm. And, even if you’ve never had that experience, we’ve all sat through such introductions. Generally, such lukewarm introductions set off warning bells in our heads that the speaker to come may not be anything worth listening to and we likely begin the process of tuning out.
In Ephesians 4:11-12, we are introduced to those with a fantastic spiritual gift called evangelism. These are those who have a great capacity for introducing people to Jesus. The Greek word used there is εá½Î±Î³Î³ÎµÎ»Î¹ÏƒÏ„ής (“euaggelistÄ“s”), which although having a complicated appearance, is actually quite simple. “Eu” means to be well off, prosper, act well, or to fare well. In a sense it means good. The aggelistes come from the word angelos, the word for angel, or messenger. So, an evangelist is nothing more than one who brings a good message or brings a message of good tidings.
Can you picture the sky the shepherds saw on that night Jesus was laid in a manger???
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
The sky is lit up, full of dancing, glimmering angels, all radiant with the glory of God, singing loudly the good tidings of Jesus. They are bringing the gospel, the greatest news of all eternity. With hearts brimming over with love and passion they simply point the shepherds to a baby. A baby?!! The greatest news of all is about a baby being born? Yes, when the baby is God in human flesh, Jesus, the son of Mary, there is nothing like it.
The message was simple. He is the savior, Christ the Lord. But because they knew Him, which is obvious given their appearance as angels in the sky, it is easy to believe their message. This warm welcome results in a great desire to meet and hear the speaker to follow.
As Christians, even though some have the give of being an evangelist, we are all called to the ministry of sharing the good news of Jesus in our lives. We are all evangelists. And, I wonder, are we good at it? I think of the average conservative theologian. They know their stuff. They know how to talk about atonement, baptism, communion, how Jesus saves you, why bad things happen, and the like. They know a lot of facts about God and the bible. They have Jesus’ bio, His curriculum vitae, down – even memorized. But, as they reel off a whole lot of knowledge about Jesus, a bunch of academic thought, it can ring hollow and seem as though the facts aren’t supported by a heart of tender love for a very real person, a baby in a manger, a friend of sinners, the One who reaches up to Zacchaeus, the One who forgave the prostitute, the One who wept for Lazarus, the One who adored Mary and let Mary adore Him, the One who died for each one of us in spite of our rejection of Him and who then walked the Emmaus road with His friends and reconciled Himself with Peter after complete rejection.
I think when we try to talk about theology with non-Christians we are like that bad introduction to a great speaker. We drone on about things we’ve read (in the Bible, the bio of God), but we have no stories to share about how this person has personally impacted our lives. Is it any wonder non-Christians want to spew us out of their mouths?
Those who haven’t yet met Jesus simply need the good news. And they don’t need to hear a bunch of Jesus followers arguing over theology. They just need to see real people who really know a real person named Jesus who loved us so much He died for us.
Sometimes I wonder if the reason we are so bad at introducing people to Jesus is because we don;t really know Him in the first place… because it strikes me that when you know the King of all kings personally… well, you couldn’t help but bubble that over in conversation every chance you got.