SunApr112010
Title: We Are Witnesses
Scripture: Acts 5:27-32
Text: We gave you strict orders.... (Acts 5:28a)
Theme: Witnesses to the power and love of the resurrected Christ
Acts 5:27-32 ( NRSV ) 27When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, 28saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.” 29But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. 30The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”
An Illustration:
Alice Thompson lived with her parents in rural southern Illinois. Besides a house and a tool shed, the other building on their small acreage was a chicken coop where the egg-laying hens roosted. When young Alice found some matches, she took them into the chicken coop to see if she could figure out how to strike one. She did figure it out, and held the burning wooden matchstick until it got too hot, then dropped it. Instead of burning out, the bit of flame fell on a piece of straw, which came alive with fire.
Determined that no one know about the matches, Alice covered up the flame with readily available material -- a handful of straw. For a minute, it seemed to work, but then the pile began to smolder. She decided to smother the whole thing, so she scooped up a full armload of straw to bury the evidence once and for all. Satisfied that she had finally taken care of the matter, she ran out into the yard to play. Soon the chicken coop had burned to the ground. (Heidi Peterson Story in Christian Century - http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2185)
The religious leaders in our story from Acts this morning find themselves in a situation not wholly unlike the one in which little Alice Thompson of chicken coop notoriety found herself. They thought they had rid themselves of this Jesus person, whom many in the population had looked to as a prophet and preacher and teacher. But he was perceived as a threat to the religious establishment. Weeks earlier they had apparently gotten rid of Jesus, apparently, but some unsettling things were happening.
It was even more surprising because these followers of Jesus, these disciples or apostles, as they were called, were behaving in unexpected ways. What was unusual about them was how usual they were. They were common, ordinary people. They were tax collectors and fishermen and blue collar folk. They hadn’t been to bible school or seminary and had no formal training in religion or theology.
And yet, their preaching and teaching in the temple drew enviable crowds. People were touched, their lives were changed and many were experiencing healing in various kinds of ways. What was worse, a significant number of women and men were joining this new movement made up of followers of Jesus or Christians, as they would later come to be called.
Something had to be done. This rapidly spreading fire, if you will, had to be extinguished, so the most powerful religious authorities in the land met and had these followers of Jesus arrested and thrown in jail. The plan was to bring them before the council the next day and decide what to do with them.
Overnight Peter and the other disciples with him were miraculously delivered from the jail (they just don’t make jails like they used to, you know). Instead of heading for the hills or Galilee or somewhere safe, they were instructed to return to the temple and tell the story of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection.
The scene that follows is a bit comical. Come morning the council sends guards to retrieve the prisoners, only to find that they escaped in the middle of the previous night. While the perplexed council members are trying to figure out what happened and what they should do next, the escapees are found, not hiding in the hills, but preaching openly in the halls of the temple.
That brings us to this morning’s lectionary reading from Acts. The religious council has the disciples brought back before them. “What are you doing?” they ask. “We gave you strict orders,” they say.
Peter and those with him simply respond, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” They go on to talk about the crucifixion of Jesus, which the council had a part in and the resurrection of Jesus, which God had a part in and the purpose of it all.
Peter never had a reputation for being overly diplomatic, and needless to say, his little speech did not go over extremely well with the highest religious council in the land. In fact they were enraged and wanted to kill the whole lot, according to the biblical account.
In the midst of the tempest a cooler head prevails. Gamaliel, a respected member of the council asks that the prisoners be escorted from the chamber. In their absence he gives the council a little history lesson. It seems that in recent years two other charismatic leaders had risen up. They too had attracted a significant following. They too were perceived as a threat to the established order. Both ended up being killed, after which their followers scattered and were never heard from again.
Leave these people alone, Gamaliel advises the council, referring to Jesus’ disciples. If their undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if this is God’s doing, you will not be able to overthrow them.
[Earlier in the service Mark read] The familiar account from the Gospel of John tells the story of Jesus’ first post-resurrection encounter with the disciples. It was that first Easter Sunday evening. I suspect it was probably in the same house, where he had celebrated that last meal with them three nights before. “The doors of the house, where the disciples had met were locked for fear.”
Reading these two passages, one from the Gospel of John and the other from the book of Acts, raises a question for me: What happened to these disciples in the intervening weeks between the two events? In one they are cowering behind closed doors in fear. In the next they are marching fearlessly into the face of danger and possible death.
I would like to suggest that they had encountered the power and love of the resurrected Christ. The encounter changed them in remarkable ways, turning them from people who were full of fear into people who were full of faith. Love has tremendous power to transform lives. Geoff Bullock talks about it in a recent song entitled “The Power of Your Love.” The song is really a prayer:
Lord I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace
That I found in You.
And Lord I've come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love.
Bullock concludes his song with these words:
...renew my mind
As Your will unfolds in my life
In living every day
by the power of Your love.
Those disciples cowering in fear in that room in Jerusalem on that first Sunday evening after Good Friday had their weaknesses stripped away by the powerful love of the resurrected Christ.
A visible demonstration of the power of a father’s love for his daughter was seen recently in New York City. The story appeared in numerous news channels in New York and beyond:
It was April 3, 2010, a sun-drenched New York weekend, and late Saturday afternoon. Lower Manhattan was packed with visitors.
Suddenly there was a splash and a scream. Someone had fallen from the gangway of the square rigger Peking into the 48 degree water of the East River -- and the dilemma memorialized in Woody Allen's film Manhattan was really happening.
If a person was drowning, would we have the nerve -- would one of us have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save them? It's a key question, only it was a 2-year-old named Bridgett who'd fallen in. And her father David Anderson and a second man, a 29-year-old tourist from France, didn't hesitate to plunge in. With help from other strangers on the dock, she was gotten the last few feet to safety.
And Bridgett was fine -- stabilized at the scene and later released from the hospital in good health. So while Woody Allen's character might have given himself a pass about a decision to jump to the rescue or not, a little girl is alive today because two men did -- David Anderson, and a second man, a stranger from another country, who simply left in a cab without waiting around for credit -- or thanks.
It was a visible demonstration of the power of love to make a difference.
An earlier account in Acts 4 describes an encounter between Peter and John and the same council in today’s story. Peter and John are in hot water because of their preaching and teaching about Jesus. To make matters worse, the healing of a 40-year-old man crippled from birth had drawn even more attention to the message they were proclaiming.
In the course of examining and cross-examining Peter and John, the council notes three significant things about them: First, their boldness; second, that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures; and finally, that they had been with Jesus.
It was that last fact that made all the difference, I suspect. They had been with Jesus.
I recently came across the story of a young woman who was curious about how her grandmother met her grandfather, so she asked. Her grandmother said that it was during World War II and she was in her 20s. The man she was dating left for the war. "We were in love," she recalled, "and wrote to each other every week. It was during that time that I discovered how wonderful your grandfather was."
"Did you marry Grandpa when he came home from the war?" the young woman asked.
"Oh, I didn't marry the man who wrote the letters,” her grandma replied. “Your grandfather was the mailman."
So over that two or three year period during WWII, the grandmother learned how wonder the grandfather was. Something like that happened over the three or so years of Jesus’ active ministry. It was during that time that the disciples lives were touched and shaped and changed, a time when they learned how wonderful Jesus was.
A favorite poem of mine is by the 16th Century Welsh poet, George Herbert. It is simply entitled “Love.”
LOVE
by 16th Century Welsh poet, George Herbert
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
I grew up in a little Nazarene Church in Castle Rock, Washington. A family attended that church that was a rather troubled family. The mother and several children participated in worship services and were involved in the Sunday School fairly regularly, but the father seldom attended. He was a big, burly logger and worked in the woods for Weyerhaeuser, falling timber. It was not an easy life, but he earned good money. It would have been more than enough to support his family, except that he had a drinking problem.
On paydays he seldom got home early after work, but rather stopped at the local bar. Not only did he blow a good part of his paycheck there, he would come home drunk and in a sour mood. When he was drunk, he was often verbally and physically abusive to his wife and children.
It was a distressing situation, which often seemed hopeless to his family and friends. Then one day this man had a rather dramatic conversion experience. This prodigal, who had wandered into the far country, came to the end of his rope and then came to himself. He turned to God and experienced a remarkable change in his life.
He became a dependable and loving husband and father. Later he would become a leader in that little Nazarene Church. His life was a witness to the power of the resurrected Christ.
Earlier in this service we sang, “Spread the good news o’er all the earth, Jesus has died and has risen.” It is the message that brings us and millions of others around the world together today. It is the message which has made a difference in countless lives over the years. This message about the transforming power of God’s love cannot and will not be extinguished, anymore than the fire in little Alice’s chicken coop. It is a message, started back around 30 A.D., that continues to spread throughout the world.
We are witnesses!