Reading Ramblings – May 18, 2014

Date:  Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 18, 2014

Texts: Acts 6:1-9, 7:2a, 51-60; Psalm 146; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

Context: The season of Easter continues for seven weeks, until Pentecost, a Jewish festival celebrated 50 days after Passover.  The Gospel reading continues to focus on the events after Easter morning, while the other readings flesh out the implications of the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth for you and I today.  All of the readings (except the Psalm) are drawn from the New Testament, with the first reading coming from the book of Acts.  Although the readings from Acts are often associated with Pentecost, we need to look not merely at their historical context, but what they actually say.

Acts 6:1-9, 7:2a, 50-60— We celebrate the resurrection of the Lord, and this week read of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.  The message of God the Father’s work through the death and resurrection of God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, always has and always will create opposition, opposition willing to oppose it and silence it through force and execution if necessary.  Our Easter proclamation is Good News too good to keep to ourselves, even if that puts us at risk.  It is Good News that may not bring you and I good things, but rather is the assurance of all things through Jesus Christ.  So it is that we endure today waiting for his return, certain that He will come, because of his resurrection.

Psalm 146— Where is your hope?  Is it in the bank?  In the government?  In your hands?  In your spouse, your children, your grandchildren?  Who and what can save you?  Your doctor?  Your financial planner?  Your president.  All of these things and people will fail you in one way or another.  None of them can save your life.  Only in Christ do we place our hope, because we know that our hope will not disappoint us.  As long as we live He is to be the focus of our hope and life, and the one our life points everyone around us towards.

1 Peter 2:2-10 — Our hope is not only in the future and life beyond.  God the Holy Spirit is at work in us today, creating in us and through us the Church.  We are to be means of the Holy Spirit’s work in this world, blessing and extending hope and good news to everyone.  We are called to give him praise, to live lives of praise that point to our hope in him even when our worldly fortunes crumble or are taken from us.  The world tells us that financial security and success, fame, and power are the things that matter.  What matters for the people of God is to praise God, to keep his love and forgiveness as the center of their lives.  We have received so much in Jesus Christ!  How foolish we would be to trade that away for anything the world promises to give us!

John 14:1-14— This passage is spoken during the Last Supper, shortly after Jesus washes his disciples’ feet.  His actions and teachings so far this momentous night have baffled and confused his disciples, and these words are no different.  Jesus attempts to prepare his disciples for what will transpire in the coming hours and days, but they are still set on victory, on conquering the world.  Who can resist the teaching or mighty works of their rabbi?  Who indeed can stand against the very Son of God? 

But Jesus looks ahead—beyond his arrest and execution, beyond his burial and three days in the tomb, beyond even his resurrection and the days He will spend with his followers before his Ascension.  He looks ahead to that Ascension when He will return to the Father to await the Father’s timing.  All of this is preparation for a joyful and eternal reunion. 

Jesus’ words should be heard in the same vein as his teaching in chapter 10 last week—Jesus is the way to God the Father.  We cannot approach God by any other means than Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended, and coming again.  We are not at liberty to forge an alternate path.  We must go through him.  This is possible because the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father.  The two are the same yet different, one God yet two persons. 

Passages such as this one have focused Christians on the hope of heaven, an eternal dwelling place, a mansion with many rooms.  Yet Scripture speaks more often of our hope in a renewed heaven and earth, where God dwells among his creation as He did in the first days.  It is a return to a perfected creation that is our ultimate goal, not the temporary dwelling place of heaven. 

Verses 12-14 are fascinating to us because they appear to promise so much, with no restrictions.  Our selfish and sinful hearts immediately leap to the many conveniences we might claim in the name of Jesus, the many perks and luxuries with which we could make ourselves and those around us comfortable.  Clearly this is not what Jesus has in mind, as no believer could in good faith pray so selfishly, so manifestly apart from the will of God.

Rather, Jesus is saying in these verses that the mighty acts the apostles witnessed will continue, even though in a short time Jesus’ incarnation will be a thing of the past, and He will have risen from the grave and ascended into heaven.  In fact, it is this very progression of Jesus from by their side to the glory of God the Father that makes it possible not just for the disciples to accomplish similar works of healing and feeding as Jesus.  Rather, in Jesus’ victory over sin, death, and Satan, the apostles (and all believers) now have access to even greater power – the power to announce the forgiveness of sins, the reconciliation of God and man, to extend the grace of God to all those who will receive it in repentance and faith.  

Will there be acts of power that accompany this good news?  The passage indicates such, and the book of Acts—and Christian history—is replete with examples.  There are many who will question why they personally have not experienced such acts of power, compelling and miraculous signs to point to the truth of God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ.  Yet as Jesus plainly told Thomas, blessed are those who will not see, and yet believe.  Faith need not be solely dependent on firsthand witness of a miraculous event.  The miracle itself functions only to point towards the greater accomplishment of the Incarnation of the Son of God. 

We hold in faith to the promises of Christ.  We proclaim the Good News that this forgiveness and grace is available to anyone who will repent and believe.  And we continue to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s power, in the name of Jesus, that as many as possible might believe and be saved.