"LET ME BE A WITNESS"

 

      Last week, at our early service, we considered the call that Jesus charged his disciples to meet when he appeared to them in the Upper Room.  He told them to go and spread the Good News.  He explained their new call in the new covenant in the midst of the turmoil, confusion, and glory of the resurrection.  Christ directed them into Mission.  He met with each of them at least once to witness to them that they could and should now become his witnesses to the world.  In our text we just read from the Acts of the Apostles, we find a resolute Peter who is no longer afraid to admit knowing Christ.  He's just received the Holy Spirit and he realizes, as we do, that the Trinity is now manifest and active within them.  The words will now come to them and allow them to reveal Christ.  Peter stands as an ordained witness to what they had seen and have been called to believe.  Christ is Raised and is Messiah.  Christ has shared with each of them the Holy Spirit and laid the path for the rest of their lives.  Just as he foretold and taught them; they are now the Church, Christ's Body on earth.  They have become the hands and feet of Christ and will lead God's ministry to every nation.  There is no mistake that the baptism by the Holy Spirit is to all peoples of every tongue.  The fire of the Spirit has fallen upon them and they have received the mantle of mission from God Almighty.  We can see that God now establishes the Kingdom as Christ overthrows death forever.  It is revealed that God remains active in all of Creation and intervenes in the manifest Trinity to open the gates of eternal life to any and all believers.

      Jesus calls to everyone through David's own prophecy as it is quoted from Psalm 16.  We hear, again from David of the gift of the resurrection, "Moreover my flesh will live in hope.   For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption."  Christ never knew sin and David attests to it.  God doesn't condone corruption and God's favorite foretells us about the coming of one that will transcend death and its corruption and decay.  God has provided the sacrificial Lamb and there is no need for additional sacrifices, other than preaching the Risen Lamb to offer the Gospel to everyone.  We are all purified and washed clean to proclaim the Good News to all through Christ.  The KJV affirms David saying that he "foresaw the Lord always before my face, and thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.  This Jesus hath God raised up, where-of we all are witnesses."  The progression of our call as witnesses follows the very lineage of Jesus from David down to Easter, and through the apostles into the calling that we face.  This message and charge for mission beckons to each of us today.  We receive the call to be a witness to the message of Easter, loosed by the power of God in Christ.  We hear as Peter now calls for all at Pentecost to witness what they had seen.  We read in another account in Johns' Gospel how Christ returns the power of the spirit to Peter to receive this charge of witness and mission.  In Chapter twenty-one he reminds Peter repeating, "Feed my sheep" three times to absolve Peter of his denial at Caiaphas' tribunal.  He ensures Peter of his forgiveness and charges him to witness in love and to love all unto faith.  There is no sword here to cut off non-believers ears so that they now will hear.  There is no call to overthrow the existing government in combat and conflict.  Christ calls only in love to convert the established social and spiritual disorder of the world into the love and peace of God.  Truly, there is no conflict here.  There is powerful conversion but no force of conflict. 

      In our other text from I Peter, chapter one talks of renewal and re-birth.  Nicodemus, who was one of only two votes to free Jesus at his trial before Caiaphas, understands now completely what Christ taught during the evening that he talked with him.  He now fully understands the meaning of a second birth as his grief is transformed into gratitude to the Risen Christ, whose body he and Joseph of Arimathea had begged for just days before.  Indeed, salvation is promised to each of us until the 'last of times.'   And this simple phrase, 'last of times' carries a powerful message for us as well.  It reminds us of the eschatological frame for the church throughout time.  This brand new message of salvation is promised to the church eternal in our own time and context.  It is the gift of love from God forever.  And that is the very meaning of "Good."  It is the essence of God being Good all of the time.  The message of salvation is relevant and affirmed for anyone that believes for All Time.  This is our simple yet innervating call to service.  Yet, this call will come with a purging for our faith.  Our faith will be tested by fire and refined as we return to praise and glorify God.  Peter embodies these tests of faith when his calling concludes with his death.  His witness is confirmed as he was crucified upside down, insisting that he is not worthy of being nailed upright as his Lord and Savior was.  Peter understood that the root word for witness was 'martus' in Greek, and that this calling would describe the ultimate death for all of the disciples except John as martyrs.  We are reminded that the cost of faith is sometimes very dear.  The KJV reminds us that our faith will be tried but will not fail if we honor the Glory of the "appearing of Jesus Christ."  His Easter triumph promises, "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you."  Here is the "end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls."  In our Scripture from The Message we hear, "This Jesus following the deliberate and well thought out plan of God, was betrayed by men who took the law into their own hands and was handed over to you.  Yet death was no match for him!"  And death has no hold on us as witnesses.  How trite do we find Pilate and Caiaphas as they took and devised their own law to dispose of Jesus; when it had been ordained before they breathed their first breath that Christ would become the Law incarnate.  The Spirit of Law had been confirmed and transformed into love, grace, and mercy instead of a human process to incarcerate and kill.  The Law of Moses is, once again seen as God's Law and not a tool for mankind to wield in selfish sin.  Yes, we are reminded through Peter that there will be suffering for our faith, yet we are delivered because the ultimate sacrifice has been accomplished.  God's power is evident in unconditional love and not in unconditioned social injustice.  We are the inheritance of all witnesses.  One Commentary says that our text in Luke, "views witnessing as the defining characteristic of the apostolic task."  We find ourselves vested with the priesthood of all believers. "Can you hear me now?"

      Again from The Message, "The Future starts now, because of the awesome God that we have."  This confirms our salvation, being faithful in all trials.  And we understand that Salvation in Scripture is primarily an act of the future of God's plan.  Christ stands over death with his foot on the finality of evil and the other steadfastly planted on the threshold of eternity in God's love.  Nothing could match the passion of Christ.  And God doesn't expect us to withstand it in human passion.  Jesus' dual nature has delivered everyone forever.  God will never abandon us to evil.  God stands with us and will carry us if necessary.  I can hear the praise song now as the words reassure us, "Let me be a witness, Lord, oh let me be a witness."  We are loved into eternal life by our Risen Savior.  Now our ears may hear, now our eyes may see.  Easter has loved us into loving others with the message of salvation for every nation.  The dawn of Easter calls to us from Christ's Horizon, "Can you hear. him now?"