No need to make Jesus relevant

Challenging thoughts from Dr. Richard Lischer, especially as we conclude our advent preaching.  Does your preaching primarily move backward to the historical Jesus or forward to the risen Christ? 

"Because the risen Christ is alive and moving toward us from his own future, the preacher is not constrained to make him relevant as if Jesus were only a figure in the distant past. We do not have to prove that he is real because he is already here. We do not have to dig him up from his Sitz im Leben, for the movement of preaching is not backward to the historical Jesus but forward to the risen Christ."

Richard Lischer, The End of Words, 37-38.