Carl Laferton takes our evangelistic temperature
When it comes to sharing our faith, Christmas comes relatively easy.
Very few people mind being invited to a carol service, a nativity, or a Christingle. We often tell each other that Christmas is the best opportunity of the year for evangelism… and perhaps deep down we have come to think that Christmas is the only opportunity of the year for evangelism.
Easter is different. It’s not just the heart of our faith; it’s the season that truly reveals our heart attitude towards evangelism. Easter is not such an easy invite as Christmas. People find it weirder to be asked to come to something Easter-ish. And whereas at Christmas the baby in the manger can be wrapped in tinsel in someone’s mind and filed under ‘cute’, you can’t do that with a man crowned with thorns.
So Easter shows me whether sharing my faith is something I do as little as possible, as safely as possible; or whether it is something that is part of my life, intrinsic to the way I approach my walk with Christ.
The challenging question I need to ask is: How many of the people I invited to Christmas events will I actively seek to share my faith with this Eastertime? When I take my evangelistic temperature around Easter, then I discover that it’s lower than I’d like it to be, and lower than I know it ought to be.
So, how to raise the reading on the thermometer? Here are three words I’m trying to internalise, pray through, and live out of, that I’m pretty certain will transform my witness this Easter and beyond – and yours, too.
1. Perspective
When Paul was on trial for his life – isolated, defeated, mocked – his judge, the Roman governor Felix came to see him, along with his third wife who he had seduced while she was married to another man. And Paul ‘spoke about faith in Christ Jesus’ – specifically ‘about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come’ (Acts 24.24-25).
Righteousness – that God commands and demands perfect purity in how we live in his world. Self-control – that God commands and demands perfect self-discipline in how we treat our bodies and those of others. Judgment to come – there is a day when we will have to give an account to the God who made us for how we treated his world and the people in his world.
That’s the perspective that caused Paul not to beg this Roman governor for his life; not to negotiate with him for his freedom; but to speak to him about a righteousness he did not have, a self-control he had not shown, and a judgment he would one day face.
That’s the perspective that gets you opening your mouth to talk about Jesus, because it causes you to ask one question when you are talking to someone, to anyone: Where will you be in 200 years? Suddenly you don’t see their big house, or their family, or their job title, or their looks or their spouse’s looks or their mistress’s looks. Suddenly you know what they most need is what they do not have, and what you can offer them – a way through that judgment.
2. Story
The cultural approach to Easter is strange, when you think about it. On the one hand, there are fluffy bunnies and lots of chocolate. On the other, there is a man being brutally executed. Since it’s hard to wrestle both those images into the same story, the fluffy bits tend to come front and centre, and the execution part is quietly forgotten. So whereas everyone knows the Christmas story (albeit with add-ons about a donkey, a stable, and at times a drummer-boy), ask the average person and they can’t tell you about the foot-washing, the betrayal, the trial, the appearances of a dead man.
And that means that we have a great opportunity at Easter, because the Easter narrative is gripping. It’s history that comes with an 18 certificate. It’s a story of loyalty, arguments, betrayal, love, desertion, injustice; it’s about great plans, shattered dreams, nightmare scenes and renewed hope.
When we wrench the cross and the empty tomb out of context – when we present them coldly and blandly as ‘on the cross Jesus died for your sins’, or when we just focus on the apologetic issues about whether Jesus really rose – we tell the truth, but at the same time we undermine that truth because we don’t tell is as what it is: history, that really happened. Let the story loose, tell it, share it, show it with friends who aren’t interested in ‘Christianity’, and you may just find that they’re gripped. God hasn’t given us a set of doctrines to instill in people; he’s given us a story with which to thrill people.
So in the run-up to this Easter, make sure you’re enthralled by, revelling in and marvelling at the events of Palm Sunday, the rows of the early part of the next week, the heartrending meal and prayer and arrest of the Thursday night, the twists of the trial on the Friday, the strangeness of the death of Christ, the quiet grief of the Saturday, the jolting shock and uncertainty of the early Sunday, the dawning, joyful realisation of the next few days. Be excited, and be moved… and out of that share the story.
3. Challenge
After Paul’s trial before Governor Felix, he was left to rot, until he stood before Felix’s successor, named (slightly confusingly) Festus. And to Festus, Paul explained how he had encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus and been not only converted by him, but also commissioned by him:
‘I am sending you [to the Gentiles] to open their eyes … so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by me’ (Acts 26.17-18).
In other words, Jesus bade Paul to come to him and then commanded Paul to go out from him.
And here is how Paul responded: ‘I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven’ (v.19). What did not disobeying King Jesus mean? ‘First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God…’ (v.20). Obedience meant doing his job. It meant evangelism to the Gentiles.
You and I have not been appointed the apostle to the Gentiles. But we do have an appointment. Jesus tells us: ‘Go and make disciples of all nations’ (Matthew 28.19). When it comes to evangelism, our commission is not so different to Paul’s. Evangelism is an issue of obedience. It’s not like overtime – the boss is glad you do it, but you don’t have to do it. It’s part of the core hours. If you are a Christian, you are a witness.
‘I am with you’
So that’s the challenge, this Easter: not to see faithful, risky evangelism as an option, but as obedience – obedience to the King who risked everything and gave everything at the first Easter. Jesus is the King who promised as he told us to ‘go’ that ‘surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’ (Matthew 28.20) – including in the run-up to this Easter.
That’s the way to get the evangelistic temperature rising – in our own lives and throughout our churches. The Easter story deserves, and demands, an audience. It’s our privilege, as well as our challenge, to invite those around us to hear it, whether from our lips or from our churches’ pulpits.
