Subverted Expectations: Narrative II
by the Rev. AJ Ochart
Scripture
Sermon Notes
This week we continue the Summer Sermon Series, ‘How to Read the Bible’ based on the Bible Project series by the same name.
This week we will continue looking at biblical narrative (story), and specifically the Gospel narratives. The four canonical gospels tell the story of Jesus. While they are not the first of our Christian scriptures to be written, they lay the groundwork for our understanding of Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ. The authors of these gospels expertly blend the settings, design patterns, metaphors, and images of the Hebrew scriptures, while also blending them with the contemporary literature from Greece and Rome. The very word ‘gospel,’ which means ‘good news’ was most often used to describe a proclamation or declaration from a Caesar or magistrate rather than a religious one.
The beginning of the gospel we attribute to Matthew is a great example of this. The gospel includes elements that would be familiar to Jewish readers, specifically those who were familiar with the story of Moses. The gospel also has elements that make connections between the birth narrative and those of great Greek and Roman leaders like Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar. These design elements and images are intentionally used to present Jesus as a new Moses and a salvific Lord and King.
If you would like to explore the topic of Biblical Narrative more, please see the following notes (these are the same resources as I sent last week, so if you have watched and read everything, you can take a break; and if you haven’t, you have some more chance to do so).
