Making Sense of World Events
Text: Act 10:34-43
Title: Making Sense of World Events
Thesis: The most important daily headline is “Jesus Lives!”
Time: Easter, C
A grandchild was at his grandmother’s house, thumbing through the family Bible on the coffee table. The grandmother noticed the look of fascination on the grandchild’s face as he held up a leaf that had been pressed between two pages in the Bible. As he held up the leaf to inspect it, she asked, “What do you have there?” He replied, “I don’t know, but I think it might be Adam’s clothes.”
With our thoughts turned to the Bible, especially today on Jesus’ empty tomb, what evidence is there, really, that Jesus was raised from the dead? Our immediate reaction may be to turn to archaeology –searching for rolled away stones, or grave clothes and body wrappings showing evidence that a body that has been removed. However, in one of the earliest sermons that addresses the resurrection of Jesus, Peter’s sermon in Acts 10, the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection lies elsewhere. What is the evidence? It’s what Peter calls “being a witness.”
Peter doesn’t dilly-dally in his sermon found in Acts 10:34-43, easily read in under two minutes. Oh, what that would do for congregations today if we preachers could keep the sermons down to two minutes. Peter succinctly explains why Jesus came to earth, full of power through the Holy Spirit. Jesus came to heal people. Jesus went around doing good deeds for all kinds of people. Jesus preached about peace. Peter goes on to explain that Jesus is still alive, despite his having been crucified and dead and buried. The proof that Jesus is raised from the dead is found in Acts 10:39, “We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death on a tree; but God raised him on the third day.” More evidence is given as Acts 10:40 continues, “and allowed him to appear, not to all but people but to those of us who were chosen by God as witnesses.” The only kind of evidence given by Peter that Jesus has been raised, and that mentioned twice, is that he and others are witnesses that Christ has been raised.
We know what it means to be a witness. A witness provides a firsthand testimony to some event. I remember once witnessing a wreck. A semi truck overturned on the interstate. After the state trooper arrived, he asked me to explain the events as I remembered seeing them. As a witness, Peter saw Jesus healing people. He was there as Jesus performed good deeds for all kinds of people. Peter heard Jesus preach messages about the peace God brings. And Peter saw the risen Jesus, he ate and drank with Jesus, as he tells us in Acts 10:41. For Peter, being a witness of Jesus is more than being a bystander, someone off at a distance. To be a witness of Christ means to believe. It’s the action of having faith, of experiencing the peace and healing and good deeds that Jesus brings. Peter tells us in Acts 10:44, the conclusion of his sermon that “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through is name”
Today, this Easter morning, April 11, 2004, what is the evidence that Jesus has been raised? According to Acts 10, the evidence is you and me, witnesses who have experienced firsthand the peace, and healing and love of God. Through the power of the resurrection, the ministry of healing and salvation of Jesus continues.
A provocative letter went out to The British Weekly that began, “Dear Sir: It seems ministers feel their sermons are very important and spend a great deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church quite regularly for thirty years, and I have probably heard 3,000 of them. To my consternation, I discovered I couldn’t remember a single sermon. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitably spent on something else?” For weeks a storm of editorial responses ensued, finally ended by this letter, “Dear Sir: I have been married for thirty years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals –mostly my wife’s cooking. Suddenly I have discovered I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet, I have the distinct impression that without them, I would have starved to death long ago.”
Perhaps the reason why we preachers can preach such long sermons is that we distance ourselves from the power source –that Jesus has been raised. Equally, for all of us, maybe the reason why we go out of our way, to great lengths, in the search for happiness and contentment is we are severed from the source of salvation–that Jesus has been raised. We can make too big a sacrifice of our bodies, working long hours, spending great amounts of money and other resources creating the picture perfect lives, when all the time we forget the source of peace and healing and love –that Jesus has been raised.
We live in a world looking for witnesses, witnesses of those who have found peace, who no longer hurt, for those who are content. And remarkably, just as easily as the answer is explained in two minutes, so can the answer comes immediately, through believing that Jesus Christ is raised. Jesus moves us from death and defeat to life and victory.
In 1995, the Northwestern Wildcats football team had one of the most remarkable seasons in college football history. Prior to 1995 the Wildcats were the most notorious losers in the Big Ten, and for that matter in college football. They had set an NCAA record by losing thirty-four consecutive games between 1979 and 1982. They had not had a winning season in over twenty-four years. Then in 1995, under head coach Gary Barnett, the Wildcats finished the season 10-2, won the Big Ten Conference title, and went to the Rose Bowl ranked eighth in the nation. Coach Gary Barnett earned all the credit he received, winning seventeen national coach-of-the year awards. In the spring of 1996 as the team prepared for the next season, Coach Barnett knew he had to fight the natural tendency to keep looking back on 1995. So he called a team meeting in the auditorium of the football center. As the players found seats in the gently banked rows of plush chairs, Barnett mounted the stage and announced that he was going to hand out the awards that many of the Wildcats had earned in 1995. As Barnett called the players forward and handed them awards proclaiming their accomplishments, the 70-plus players in the room cheered and chanted their teammate’s names. The players roared as Barnett waved the award representing his 17 national coach-of-the-year awards. Then, as the applause subsided, Barnett walking to the side of the stage, stopping in front of the trash can marked “1995.” He took an admiring glance at his award, then dumped it in the can. As silence descended on the auditorium, Barnett stepped to the side of the stage. Then, one by one, the stars of the team dropped their awards on top of Barnett’s. Soon the trashcan was overflowing with the awards of the previous season.
After his resurrection, Jesus did not return to heaven as a champion who no longer showed his care for humanity. Instead, Jesus continues in the ministry of bringing us salvation, and healing and good deeds. Jesus is our mediator, the book of Hebrews tells us. What does that mean for us as we are witnesses of Jesus? It means that we stay in the game, continuing to go out and to give witness to others of the transformation that Jesus has brought about in our lives.
Today is the award ceremony. Easter morning is the time to celebrate, to celebrate the award of eternal life that is ours through Jesus Christ. But our living as witnesses of Jesus Christ is not yet over. There are still others who are searching for a better way. They need to see us, they need to witness those who are content, happy, full of joy and peace.
In seminary, as I have shared, I served as an associate pastor in a new church in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Fort Worth, Texas. I remember one day another church member and myself going door to door in the neighborhood, inviting people to attend our church. I recall one lady in her 30s, crying when we invited her to church. She told us that in all her years of living in that neighborhood, we were the first people to ever invite her to church. She invited us in and told us about the problems in her life –her children being beat up at school, her estrangement from her husband, her trouble finding employment. And as we listened, we had someone to tell her about –about Jesus, who came to heal, to do good things for others, and who came to bring peace. Over that next year our church developed a relationship with that woman and her children, as we were witnesses of God’s love.
And so today, may we be witnesses that Jesus Christ is risen, risen indeed.