“‘You are my witnesses,’ this is what the Holy One says, ‘and my servant whom I’ve chosen, so you might know and believe in me and perceive that I am The One. Before me no god was made, nor will there be after me'” (Isaiah 43.10).
I grew up in the Southern Baptist tradition, which puts an emphasis on one’s testimony. What is your faith story? How when did you encounter Christ and turned from following your own ways and those of the world and, instead, followed Jesus? This was one of your main tools of witnessing to others: knowing and articulating your own story.
Traditions that aren’t “born again” ones don’t put as much of an emphasis on a person’s faith story. Some of this is because of a very different understanding of life with Christ. There is no penultimate moment of a life of sin that becomes a life lived in grace. Instead, lives are a journey that do not reach a climax of faith until we go from this world to the next one. We never reach a mystical moment when we are transformed. Transformation, in the mainline traditions, is something that happens every day.
Of course, this doesn’t preclude telling our story, giving our testimony up to today, to this moment. But, so many react to our evangelical brothers and sisters that we’re apt to toss out anything that smacks of their influence. And so, we don’t talk about being a witness, about the works and deeds of God that we have witnessed.
This is unfortunate; because, as we see in this passage from Isaiah, witnessing isn’t just an evangelical action. It isn’t primarily about bringing others to faith and belief. The primary act of witnessing is so we believe and we, through our senses, come to understand the Jesus as the One.
Throughout my teen years, particularly, I was very shy about sharing my testimony. Yes, a large part was my own very painful shyness with which I can still struggle, but some of it was the thought that my testimony wasn’t very…dramatic. Quite often, in chapel at school, people who’d lived very difficult lives would come and share their witness, amazing us with stories of addiction, promiscuity, and lawbreaking. My story wasn’t anywhere near that exciting.
That impacted a lot of those I knew growing up, and it might make some of reluctant even now. But witnessing isn’t about having a dramatic faith story, it’s about being aware of the Divine in your life. It’s paying attention every moment of every day so that we might be amazed, again and again, at the work of the Holy One in this broken and groaning world.
When we do this, when we take notice of the redemption happening each second of each day we come in contact with The One. When we see the work of the Holy One in this world, run our hands over Jesus’ own fingerprints, and we increase our knowledge and understanding of Christ.
Is this just so we deepen our relationship with Jesus? No, God’s work is never just about us. Each encounter with the Holy One increases our faith and our belief. We dig deeper the well within us that holds living water. And this empowers us to share the wonder of what we’ve seen and testify to the places and the moments where we have encountered the Divine in this world.
And, who knows, in so doing we might become part of someone else’s story as they bear witness to what we have shared with them.
Divine storyteller, help me to own my story, my witness to your goodness not only to cultivate my relationship with you, but to become a living story that brings others to an awareness of your redemption and love.