Acts
5:27-32; Revelation
1:4-8; John
20:19-31
Many years ago when I first started
in ministry I gave a children's sermon on the creation story. I began my time with the children by asking
them, "What did God make the first day?" What did God make on the second day? They answered both questions correctly. "And what happened on the third
day?" I asked. One little boy, who I had never ever heard
say a word, shot his hand into the air, with his face shining with enthusiasm, and
exclaimed, "He rose from the dead!"
It took about ten minutes before I could continue due the waves of
laughter sweeping through the congregation.
It was a priceless moment that I have not forgotten.
He
rose from the dead. He probably had no
idea at the time, but that young boy on that Sunday was a witness to the resurrection. He might not have known what God created on
the third day or he did know and was trying to be a “wise guy”, but God used
him to witness to the resurrection in a powerful way. It reminded all of us of what lies at the
very heart of the Gospel message. It
reminded all of us of our vocation as God’s people to be witnesses to the
resurrection.
A
witness is someone who speaks from first-hand knowledge. He or she knows from personal experience that
what he says is true; and it is impossible to stop someone like that because it
is impossible to stop the truth.[i]
Our scripture readings witness to
the resurrection of Jesus in different ways.
They do so through proclamation, confession and praise. All three are risky endeavors for any of us
to take on.
There is a clash in our world
between Christ’s vision of what human life should be, on the one hand, and, on
the other, the power of all those contrary visions that dominate the social and
cultural and religious setting in which daily life is lived. When forced to choose, we as Christ’s
disciples must be faithful to their Lord’s calling no matter what.
The ministry of Peter and other
disciples began to gain some public interest.
Along with this new interest in their ministry, they angered some of the
same authorities who were culpable in Jesus’ death. They were carefully watched by those in
power. They arrested them once for
proclaiming the Gospel, but escaped by divine intervention. The authorities, frustrated both by their own
apparent inability to stop this activity and by the disciples’ boldness, bring
them before the Sanhedrin. This trial
provides Peter and the others with an opportunity to proclaim their message to
some people who really needed to hear it.
They proclaim Jesus is no longer dead, but alive, raised by God. Jesus is the living “Leader and Savior” who
is at work, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the lives of those who obey
him. This is how Peter and others
witnessed to the resurrection of Jesus to the world by proclaiming the Gospel
to all whom they encounter. Every time
we proclaim our faith in a worship service, we witness to the resurrection of
Jesus. Every time we proclaim the Gospel
to an individual or group of non-believers, we witness to the resurrection of
Jesus. Every time we proclaim the
Gospel, we witness to the resurrection of Christ and await his return with
anticipation.
We witness through proclamation as
well as through confession; confessing Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior. One of my favorite characters in
the Bible is the disciple Thomas. He
wasn’t hiding in the room with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them
the first time, but he was there a week later when Jesus returned. Thomas has been quite skeptical and unsure of
everything he has heard, but Jesus comes to change all that. Jesus knows his heart and invites him to take
the test that he had demanded: “Unless I see the print of the nails in his
hands, and put my finger in the print of the nails, and unless I put my hand
into his side, I will not believe”. And
Thomas’ heart was filled to overflowing, and all he could say was, “My Lord and
my God!”
Through this encounter with Jesus,
the character of Thomas is revealed and made clear. For Thomas, it’s all or nothing. There is an uncompromising honesty about
him. He refused to say that he
understood what he did not understand or that he believed what he did not
believe. He confessed openly and honesty
his doubts and uncertainties. This leads
us to another part of his character: when he was sure about something and had
made his mind up, he went all the way.
There is no straddling the fence with Thomas. He doubted in order to become sure; and when
he did, his surrender to certainty was complete. Thomas fights his way through his
doubts. As he does, his belief in Christ
is strengthened and empowered. Thomas does
not take Christ simply at face value or at someone else’s word about what
Christ did for us on that first Easter. We
have all at one time or another arrived at a point in our lives when the doubts
and uncertainties we held onto so tightly for so long melt away. We may have been through some thrilling
experience that led us to God. We may
have experienced a trauma in our lives, a wake-up call, that gets our attention
directing us to the one knows our thoughts and our hearts before we can express
them. During these major events in our
lives when we are overwhelmed by the Spirit of the Living God, we too don’t
have the words to speak except to confess, “My Lord and my God!”
How do we witness to the
resurrection? Confess our belief and
faith in Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out
by the grace of God.
We witness through proclamation, we
witness through confession and we witness through praise. In the first chapter of Revelation, John
opens his letter to the seven churches in Asia Minor with words of praise for
Jesus.
One of those roles is as a witness
on whom we can rely and trust. For John,
the first such witness is Jesus himself, the “faithful witness”. Because of the witness Jesus gives to God,
because of the witness embodied in Jesus’ ministry, we know how to witness and
what our witness needs to include: love one another; love God and love your
neighbor as yourself; forgive one another as God has forgiven us.
We praise Jesus as the “firstborn of
the dead”. As ‘firstborn”, Jesus becomes
the promise, the absolute conviction that neither death nor Satan nor the
powers of Satan have the last word.
Resurrection becomes the promise of the “new heaven” and “new earth”;
the renewal of creation itself.
We praise Jesus as the “ruler of the
kings of the earth.” Although most of
the rulers of the earth are not yet aware of it, and many of the residents of
the earth fail to recognize it, Jesus already rules as the chief among the
kinds of the earth. That is certainly worthy
of praise.
We must always remember that our
calling, our vocation as Christ’s disciples is to be living, breathing
witnesses to the resurrection. Paul
writes in Romans that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be
saved. But how are they to call on one
in whom them have not believed? And how
are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to
proclaim the Gospel message?” (Romans 10:13-14)
We are the ones who are called to
proclaim the Gospel message so that the world will know the amazing grace of
God through our words, our actions, our entire lives.
“The proof of Christianity is not a book but a
life. The power of Christianity is not a
creed but a Christian of character; and wherever you see a life that has been
transformed by the grace of God, you see a witness to the resurrection of
Jesus.”
Can I get a witness?
[i] The Acts of the Apostles from the Daily Study Bible series by William
Barclay (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976) p. 48.
No comments:
Post a Comment