Tuesday Re-mix:
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son… Hebrews 1:1-2
God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. Hebrews 2:4
Marshall McLuhan was the first to coin the phrase, “the medium is the message”. In his instance, he was referring to the ushering in of the information age (specifically, television) back in 1964. He noted that television (and other similar media) were more than just conduits of information, they were actually shaping and reshaping the message and were as much a part of the message as the message itself. I suppose we could make the same observation today about social media. Twitter and YouTube and SnapChat are literally reshaping how (and what) we communicate. It just seems that, from time to time, a medium comes along that changes everything we thought we knew about messaging and communication. When that happens, “the medium becomes the message.”
Never in the history of the world has this notion been truer than with Christianity. In ancient days, God spoke His message through angels, He spoke His message through the prophets, He spoke His message through the law, and He spoke His message through miraculous signs and wonders. But never was the message so clear and so divisive and so disturbing as when God spoke His message through Jesus. The very embodiment of God, representative of all His glory and power and authority, Jesus is “the Word become flesh.” He is BOTH the medium AND the message.
For Christ-followers (for His church), we have a contemporary medium through the gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed among us. For us, this is a visual representation of God at work among us. But for the watching world, it is gibberish. For that world, there simply is no clearer image of God than Jesus Christ. His life is a canvass upon which God’s Word is painted vividly in living color.
There is a great deal of talk in the church today about messaging. It is good talk. Important talk. Using all the media available to us to tell the Gospel story is, I believe, important. But even as we discuss websites and Twitter and blogs and videos…even as we consider signage and platforms and lighting and projections…we must keep one medium ever before us: Jesus. In the midst of all our new languages and vehicles, we must show the world Jesus. Because, in the end, He is the medium which really matters.
Show them Jesus. And let all the other messaging flow from that.