If they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?
I taught a class, as part of a King’s School of Theology course over the weekend, on Jesus and the story of Israel. My starting point was to say that we have two basic ways of telling the story about Jesus. There is a vertical-theological story about the eternal Son who is incarnated in the middle of time, who dies for the sins of the world, and who returns to resume his place in the godhead for the rest of eternity. There is also a horizontal-historical story about Jesus. In this story he is the beloved Son sent to the mismanaged vineyard of Israel, whose death at the hands of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem opens up a difficult, narrow and hazardous path for the few who are prepared to follow him, and whose resurrection vouches for the continued existence of God’s people in the age to come.
