Kyle Dresback

Dear Friends,

Think of the stories in your own life that you’ve told over and over. What makes these particular stories “stick?” Maybe some are entertaining or personally significant. Some might pass down generational wisdom or capture the unique personality of a family member. In this way the telling of our stories both reflect and shape who we are.

For me, these stories range from humorous family stories (driving my parents’ car through a fence at the age of three) and memorable encounters (an Easter service with the Obama family) to stories of love (how I met my wife) and other meaningful experiences (turning points in my own life, friendships, and faith).

Throughout the New Testament, the Apostle Paul finds occasion to retell Israel’s story. Each telling has a different audience at a different time and so different emphases, but they are all meant both to reflect Israel’s past and to shape their future.

In today’s reading, Paul emphasizes to Israelites and God-fearers in Antioch that God patiently stood with Israel, eventually sending them a king “after God’s own heart,” from whom Jesus, greater than even John the Baptist, was a descendant. Though he was crucified—and Paul will argue because he was crucified and raised again—Paul claims that this Jesus is the “savior” of his people.

If you’re like me, it can feel a little strange at times to pattern your life after a man who lived so long ago in the backcountry of an occupied region of the Near East. It sounds a tad bizarre to plenty of well-adjusted people. I take comfort in the lives and stories of those around Jesus, though: the men and women who knew him, whose lives were upended as a result of their encounter with him, and whose tireless determination to retell their stories put them at risk. There’s a humanness and a power in their stories and many more since that is a unique and remarkable feature of the Christian faith.

Those stories of Jesus’ followers have drawn me in. I’m doing my best to listen to and to tell their stories and I’m grateful for a Church body that so faithfully listens and retells and lives those stories, as well.

In Christ,

—Kyle