Can I Get a Witness? (2)

Call and response. This form of rhythmic and most times musical expression finds its roots in the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa where in public affairs and religious rituals one person would make the call and the people would respond. When our ancestors arrived on the shores of America, they were stripped almost completely of their heritage but not completely of their culture. We may have lost where we come from but not who we are. They would do call and response in the cotton fields or cutting sugar cane. While carrying a child on her back, and yet still filling her back up with cotton a mother would say, “guide me ova, oh though great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land” and the rest of the enslaved would respond with the tired yet melodic moans of the same words. This tradition was passed down through history to us. Even in the church experience we have call and respond from the pulpit. You know some (do a few end with “can I get a witness”). And the call to ask for a witness is not just so the preacher knows you hear them, but so that you know God hears you. That you understand that you have been through some things, that God has brought you out of some things, and you are willing to testify and share with someone else that God has blessed you. The call to be a witness from the preacher echo's the call from God to be a witness for God in the world that has refused to acknowledge God for who God is. Because it’s one thing to be a witness in church and say “amen” to the preachers and your neighbor, its something else entirely to be a witness in a world that hates God and hates you.

God has chosen us to be his witnesses. At our Jobs, in our families, in our schools, in our communities, in our social clubs, in our fraternities and sororities, at the store, at the mall, at the bar, on the court, on the field, in every place God sends you we are God’s chosen servants to be witnesses on his behalf.

1. Witnesses of His Authority

Is it time? Is 32:15-20, Ezekiel 39:28-29, Joel 2:28-31, Zech 12:8-10

Its not for us to know what God is doing and when He’s going to do it.

Fixed. There is a fixed date.

2. Witnesses with an Assignment

There is no time to waste looking and gazing toward heaven for Jesus. Its not that the angel didn’t want them to expect Jesus, otherwise they wouldn't have said hes coming back. The angels rhetoric was to awaken the disciples to the reality that the Jesus the knew was now gone.

witnesses- Exegete v.8. Jerusalem is not home base, Samaria is not common folk, end of the earth is the unknown.

He had to leave, it was better for them. (the point of the Ascension)

3. Witnesses in Anticipation

Forgetting those things (Phil 3:13) this was Israels problem in the wilderness. They were upset at Moses for setting them free.

We would rather remain in toxic familiarity that to venture into wholistic uncertainty.

The angels said, this Jesus. will come in just the same way.

Jesus is coming back and Its going to get better.

The text lets us know that after this final appearance and subsequent disappearance that the disciples are now faced with an ultimatum. They can do what Jesus told them to do or then can go back to life as normal before Jesus. They go back to the upper room but they aren't going back into the room to cry, they are going back to wait.