Thy Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader - Plough

sented by research into the advent of Christ shall stand opposedto Christ’s life in the will of God. So many peoplewrite “lives of Jesus” and seek to establish grounds for “thehistorical appearance of Christ”; and then they despair overthe fact that we have such scant records in this regard. Neitherthe Gospel accounts nor the works of other authors ofthe time serve to satisfy the lust for the confirmation of thishuman history of Jesus.The apostles and prophets don’t even bother to give usthe year of Christ’s birth. Neither are they concerned toprove to the world the historicity of his singular life, thefacts about his birth and the resurrection following his deathon the cross. For the truth does not lie in the rationally verifiablehistory but in a life—a life which, out of an unpretentiousand derided history, breaks forth as the life of God,while history according to the flesh is left behind as a uselessshell.The man whom you seek is not here (Mark. 16:6), but theGod-man remains and brings to people life and light. In thisand that there may be contradictions in the reports godlypeople have handed down from those who knew Christ inthe beginning, in what must be taken as outward history. Itis little wonder if, where all sorts of people worked togetherin great enthusiasm, imperfect things got mixed in with theperfect; it is ever so with us humans. Also, after the LordJesus had given it into the care of the people, his historywould have been passed along and elaborated. Yet, against3