Perhaps it is the former history teacher in me, or the geographic location I call home (Upstate NY) that causes me to become breathless as I consider the history all around me. A quick errand to an office downtown has me driving over cobblestone streets that William Schuyler, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton (among others) walked upon. While touring a historical home of a renown military and political leader located within minutes of our own house, we came upon the guest room. We were perhaps six inches away from the bed and my son let out a gasp and then grew silent. Knowing the list of esteemed guests the home had welcomed he said, “Benjamin Franklin was RIGHT there. Right there.” Suddenly Benjamin wasn’t just a figure, he was a real, flesh and blood human who had held space; space we too were occupying.
Knowing history roots us. As we understand the things that have happened, giving them a place and time, we also give ourselves a place and time to inhabit.
The goodness of the good news is that we get to experience the same thing as we remember that the historical accounts of the Bible are, well, history. This is not the entirety of the accounts of the Bible but it is a miracle that it is any part of our faith at all.
I have spent years studying the days of Holy Week, with years yet to continue, and this is the thing that I think we forget. It happened. In a specific place and time in history, these things happened. The places Jesus visited, the government officials he interacted with, his very death and burial are recorded historical events. I am not advocating this this is how they are considered, as mere historical events, but it is also unnecessary to discount this truth.
That there are historical records of so much of Jesus’ words and teachings, his encounters and and interactions is a historical gift. Faith is believing in what we cannot see. But how amazing is it, that we can have a faith tied to both history and wonder.
A few years ago I was with my younger brother as he recovered from brain surgery. We were in the UCLA Medical Center ICU, he wrapped up in bandages, me attempting to finish my first manuscript-both of us pretty beaten up. As he laid in his bed resting and wondering if this surgery would be the miracle we hoped it would, he asked me what I was working on. We began to talk about the Last Supper and the Upper Room and the Disciples, about the state they were all in: weary, wondering, basically the very humanness of each and every one of them. And my brother said, “It’s so easy to forget that Jesus was a real person. I want to remember that more.”
I am not exactly sure what this space is going to become. But I hope we all get to remember, in wonder, that all of this happened.