Jesus is first the Word of God in the vivid experience of those who knew him in flesh and blood: walking the streets of Capernaum and the alleyways of Jerusalem, fishing at dawn on Galilee, dining in Bethany, or reading the scroll of Isaiah at the synagogue in Nazareth.

This is to say that Jesus is first known by and in the church, the people whom he called together as his disciples.

Jesus taught those who walked with him in the deserts and seaside villages to see him—this man who eats, drinks, and sleeps on the ground beside them—as one God with the God revealed in the experience of patriarchs, psalmists, and prophets, and in the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and Babylon.

And this is also to say that Jesus is first known by and in the church before the church, the people whom God called together as Israel.

Our God is a God of intimate, person-to-person encounter. The men and women who walked with Jesus to his cross, encountered him alive and enfleshed after his resurrection, and communed with him beyond his ascension *met* the living God of the yet-living Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the very human ways we meet anyone: late night conversations by candlelight, as they embraced him at the door to their homes in Cana, or felt the touch of his hand as he shared bread.

They beheld and heard and touched the Word of Life in all that he said and did to bring healing, deliverance, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

And this encounter was unapologetically natural and involved the stuff of earth: wood, oil, water, sand, spit, blood, sweat, tears, bread, and wine.

This may all seem to go without saying but it's very important to remind ourselves that we know Jesus because others encountered him in the real world and then—and only well after—wrote about those encounters. The first Christians call this collective experience "the life of the Spirit of God in the church."