Toward A Biblical Theology of Show and Tell | Born To Be Wild (1)

In January of 1968 a new single was released to rock music fans everywhere that would prove to be prophetic of the year’s events in a certain sense, because 1968 was not a tame year by any means.

With demonstrations and protests and riots and rebellion, the year in review appears to spin wildly out of control.  A student led protest in Mexico City just days before the start of the Olympic Games ends tragically for hundreds of young people.  The Parisian student revolt in France heightens and leaves one day scared with the label “Bloody Monday.”  The Vietnam War had been waging for more than a decade by 1968 and the United States’ involvement was at its peak with more than 540,000 troops in country, yet incurring stretches of casualty tolls that topped 500/week.  In 1968 our president, Lyndon B Johnson, was steeped in the murky waters of mounting racial tension from coast to coast and countless antiwar demonstrations, with many resulting in riots on college campuses and in other urban settings.  He would choose not to run for re-election.  Rather Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of J.F.K., announced his candidacy and pursuit of “mending the many factions throughout the nation.”  He candidated for just about three months before he was shot and later died.  Then of course, perhaps the top news story from 1968 happened on April 4.  It was evening and Dr. Martin Luther King was joining friends on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.  A single shot from James Earl Ray’s riffle ripped through the evening air striking Dr. King and within an hour he was pronounced dead.

All this and more in 1968.  Not a tame year.  And perhaps that could be said of any year…this year even.  But this one song…the third single to be released off Steppenwolf’s debut album…this one song quickly became an anthem for the year 1968.  Despite its lyrical statement to “take the world in a love embrace,” Born to Be Wild became the mainstay association of the not so tame events of the year; the events that appeared counter-cultural and exceptional.  All the riots and revolts, all the conflict and rebellion, all the war and assassination; all the disharmony of the day had a popular and cultural theme song; all of it slapped with the lyrical label:  Born to Be Wild.

But, the thing of it is, as I was thinking this through, really riots and revolts and conflict and rebellion and war and assassination, they really aren’t wild at all…in the sense that they really aren’t counter-cultural or exceptional, because they really aren’t all that uncommon or untypical.  Indeed, they aren’t tame events.  But I wouldn’t say they are characteristically wild either.

But, you know what is wild?  You know what is counter-cultural and exceptional and uncommon and untypical?  What’s really wild is, in the midst of all the disharmony of the day, being an agent of reconciliation.  Standing in the gap for those beat up by the cultural and the common and the typical; bearing the burdens of those who can’t bear them themselves…while leading them to the cross of Jesus Christ.  Now that is wild.  And Christian, we were born to be wild.

The thing I love about 2 Corinthians 5:16-19 is it’s a wonderfully clear and concise statement about the seismic and transformative grace event we refer to as being born again!  Having been effected profoundly by the gospel of the Kingdom of God (vs. 14-15), Paul briefly expounds on two things, among others to be sure, that happen to the sinner when we are born again.  And these things have pretty fancy names; names we don’t use a lot in everyday conversations with our mailman or our barista…and I’m not sure we should quite frankly.  But the two things are regeneration and reconciliation.

Verse 17 is a regeneration passage.  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  That’s regeneration put as simply as you’re going to hear it anywhere.  The old set of conditions or relationships defined by the burden of sin and shame has passed out of existence.  And another set of conditions or relationships defined instead by the righteousness of God has come to stay.  And the essential nature that is generated in us is brand new…“new creation” or creature.  It’s been generated again…or regenerated.  Sometimes the ancient voice of our Church Father’s say it best…

“By this (new creation; old for new proclamation) [Paul] briefly showed that those who, by their faith in Christ, had put off like an old cloak the burden of their sins, those who had been set free from their error and been illuminated by the light of justification, had put on this new shinning cloak, this royal robe.” – Chrysostom

Beautifully stated.  The Christian has been born again…and part of what that means is we have been regenerated.  The old has passed away and the new is here to stay.  As well, being born again involves being reconciled to God.

Paul makes two statements in 2 Corinthians 5:18 & 19 that are virtually parallel.  Perhaps for emphasis, though certainly to express the nature of reconciliation: 

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

Can you believe what you just read?  Did you notice that God is both the subject and the final object here?  Oh, we fit in there as the object in the middle, but it is God who reconciles the world to himself.  Reconciliation is God’s initiative and God’s work, while at the same time the direction of reconciliation is also God-ward.  It’s a course that starts with God and ends with God.

What’s more even is that reconciliation is carried out “through Christ” and “in Christ.”  Now Paul grants us a bit more detail on that in Colossians 1:19-20:

“For in [Christ Jesus] all the fullness of God was please to dwell, and through [Christ] to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.”

Reconciliation is “through Christ” because of the cross and the bloody mess it proved to be and reconciliation could be “in Christ” because of the essential nature of Christ being fully God.  Stated briefly, being reconciled according to Paul is to be established by God through Christ in right and peaceful relationship with God in Christ.  Reconciliation is not our chance to get right with God.  It is God’s steadying and well-nigh leveling declaration that he has already made us right with Him.

Whew!  Christian, we have been born again…we have been regenerated – old for new – and we have been reconciled to God in Christ.  But we have not been born again without purpose in mind.  Lesslie Newbegin has said, “It is the very heart of the gospel that it both gives everything and requires everything.”  What 2 Corinthians 5 proceeds to reveal is that being born again is not entrance to a tame venture.  It was not a tame venture for God to regenerate us and to reconcile us to himself.  It is not a tame venture for us to take up that which Paul insists on next.