Rediscovering or discovering afresh the triune God—Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer—as the author and source of all life has the potential to dramatically alter the way we encounter each day he sets before us. If the sixty-six-book canon of Scripture is indeed the true story of the whole world, is universally valid, and comprehensive in scope, then it must necessarily lend meaning to all the big events of history and to the seemingly inconsequential and even insignificant moments in our short lives.

As I begin the second month of my ninety-day sabbatical, I spent time reading Second Chronicles, an Old Testament book of records that provides record of the kings of Israel and Judah leading up to the Babylonian captivity.

On the one hand the chronicler adds to the overarching storyline of Israel and provides us with the big picture of the TSWW and records the historical rise and fall of kings and kingdoms, the names of cities and backwater outposts, and the locations of great battlefields where wars were fought, and blood was spilled. On the other hand, he includes particular names and detailed genealogies of the men and women whose actions were sometimes courageous and more often embarrassing, evil and despicable. First and Second Chronicles cover spans of time when Israel and Judah abandoned YHWH to worship idols made of the stuff of God’s creation. They forgot their God and abandoned his law, but God never forgot them.

What stands out every time I read through the Bible is the fact of God’s faithfulness evidenced by the ongoing conversation between God and the prophets, the kings of Israel and Judah, and, between God and the most unlikely of servants—like the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus, the king of Persia.

God actively makes his name known through the prophets and little slave girls in exile, through the faithful and the faithless, through both Jews and Gentiles, and often in the face of dismal, lifeless, hopeless circumstances. The TSWW pulsates with hope ... “the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth like the water covers the sea” (Hab 2:14).

Remarkably, Jesus is clue that unlocks the meaning of it all. Jesus, the child born under stupendously scandalous circumstances in a nondescript barn in Bethlehem. Jesus, the Word who zipped on flesh lived among us. Jesus, full of grace and truth, gloriously and under the most normal of circumstances, explained God.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col. 1:16–20).

I am unsure how to wrap up this post tonight … so I am going to end with a deep breath. Selah.

If Jesus really is who he claimed to be, if the TSWW really is the true story, then everything has changed.