Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA
Offered on the Second Sunday after Pentecost 2010
I did something unusual [this morning] with the readings. If you noticed I placed the Gospel text first before the Psalm followed by the readings from Acts and the Revelation of John. I did that for a specific reason. It is that when you give them this sort of chronological sequencing, they tell a connected story of fearfulness and fearlessness building ultimately to an explanation of the “why” in John’s Revelation.
Let’s take them one at a time. In the passage from John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus’ followers are locked in a room hiding from the authorities in fear. Jesus, their teacher and leader had been a highly visible figure. He could be seen any day walking & teaching throughout Judea and the surrounding communities. He is gone. Everyone knows this. He has been crucified by the Romans; murdered by the authorities. He is gone. Although, there are some witnesses who claim that they have seen him – alive. That would be Mary and the other women at the tomb. It would also be the disciples who claimed to have met, walked and conversed with him on the road to Emmaus. But despite the stories of these witnesses, the core group of Jesus’ disciples is cowardly hiding in a locked room. I want you to get a clear image of this group of disciples hiding in fear in a room lock so that neither the outside world can get in nor, even more importantly, so that what is inside remains locked inside. They had been betrayed before…perhaps, again. That is the first image we get from today’s readings.
Then, Jesus arrives. The text says that he suddenly appears. At first, they don’t recognize him. Something is different. He greets them and shows them his scars and wounds. Finally, they recognize him. There is no doubt now who this person is. The text tells, the disciples saw the Lord AND they were HAPPY!
John’s narrative continues. Jesus speaks to them. “I am sending you, just as the Father has sent me.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Now you will recall that the story continues on, and we see the interchange between Jesus and Thomas. But I don’t want to go that far today. I want you to stop here and focus on the disciples fearfully hiding and locked up to protect themselves; that Jesus came to them and breathed the Holy Spirit on them. It is a little different from the Pentecost story in Luke where the Holy Spirit comes as tongues of flame. But today I want you to listen while the Holy Spirit teaches us something new.
There is something else that I would like to draw your specific attention to. Jesus says, “I am sending you, just as the Father has sent me.” How do you understand that? I mean, what do you think the expectations are of you when Jesus tells you that he is sending you just as the Father has sent him? What kind of expectations did God have of the Son when it was sent into the world? Was Jesus ministry a pleasant day trip into the countryside? Well first recall that Jesus’ ministry began with a 40-day sojourn in to the desert to fast and pray. So no, it wasn’t a pleasant walk in the park. Well neither is the commission that Jesus is sending us on. Fortunately, though, Jesus has not left us alone. He has left us the Holy Spirit. So, take heart.
In the second lesson from Acts, we next see the disciples in the midst of a conflict. Here, Peter and the rest of the disciples have left their safe harbor and are out teaching about Jesus. In this story, they have been taken before the Council – that would be the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and the Chief Priest. The Chief Priest begins by chastising the disciples, “…you had been plainly told not to teach about Jesus. But look what you have done”, he says. “You have been teaching all over Jerusalem and blaming us for his death.” He sounds just a bit peeved.
How do the disciples respond?
Well, they are not timid and fearful any more – as they had been before. Peter steps forward and speaks. Now if you have ever gotten an impression of Peter’s personality, you would know that Peter is head strong and blurts things out. He had chastised Jesus when he spoke about dying. He swore that he would never abandon him when Jesus said he would fall away and deny him. Peter said what was on his mind. So now, Peter answers.
“We don’t obey people. We obey God. You killed Jesus by nailing him to a cross. But the God … that our ancestors worshipped – raised him to life and made him our Leader and Savior. Then God gave him a place at his right side so that the people of Israel would turn back to him and be forgiven. We are here to tell you about all this, and so is the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to everyone who obeys God.”
Wow! What happened to those timid people hiding in the upper room? What happened to Peter, the man of three denials? Forgive the pun, but Peter nailed it. Did you hear him when he said, “We are here to tell you about this, and so is the Holy Spirit…” That is what tips the scales in their favor. Hear Peter’s words again, “…we are here…and so is the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit is the catalyst. The Holy Spirit is that known factor for Christians that converts mere fearful people into emboldened witnesses. It is the Holy Spirit that flings locks doors wide open exposing what is locked inside to the outside world and exposing the outside world to the message that had been locked within. If you think about it, Jesus’ criticism of the Jewish authorities was that while they were God’s Chosen People, they were not chosen to hoard or lock away God’s steadfast love and mercy. They were chosen to spread God’s Shalom with all the nations. Abraham was told he would be the father of all nations. Where the Jewish authorities had squirreled away that message to save it only for themselves, now the Holy Spirit has flung open the doors. From there, the Pentecost story tells us that 5,000 people were baptized by Peter and the Disciples that day. Jesus was out of the tomb, and they were not going to be able to put him back in.
But let us return to our emboldened witnesses. Peter was not a great man. He never had the tools that successful public speakers seemed to be born with. Peter was a peasant fisherman. He wasn’t educated in the rabbinical schools like Jesus and other great teachers of his time. He wasn’t from a royal family so that he could immediately demand attention and respect when he spoke. As a fisherman, he was probably a physically strong man. But as a fisher of people, he had only one talent, one skill, one advantage. That was the presence of the Holy Spirit within him. That is the Spirit of God who, Peter tells us, “is God’s gift to everyone who obeys God.” That is what I want you to hear more than any other part of my message today.
So what do we have so far in today’s lessons?
- We have fearful people hiding in a locked room.
- We have Jesus coming into that locked room and breathing onto them the Holy Spirit.
- And now, we see the result of that event. We see emboldened disciples out of their safe haven and teaching in the world and even challenging the religious authorities.
OK, now let’s turn to the lesson from John’s Revelation. John is writing to the seven churches in Asia. He opens with prayer.
He begins, “I pray that you will be blessed with kindness and peace from God, who IS and WAS and IS coming.” This is some very important phrasing.
I have to stop for a moment here because there is something that I want to call your attention to. On that first resurrection morning, when Peter and John entered the empty tomb where Jesus had been, they noticed and it is mentioned in the story that Jesus head cloth was neatly folded on the table. What does that mean? In Jewish tradition when someone rose from the table and was finished with their meal, they dropped their napkin on their seat. But if they were not finished and intended to return, they neatly folded their napkin onto their place at the table.
In the resurrection story, Jesus’ burial cloth is neatly folded on the table signifying to us and to anyone who will listen that he was/is not finished. That he is coming back. So, John says in his blessing, “…peace from God, who IS, and WAS, and IS coming.” Sometimes these things slip by us. It is important to see them.
John prays that the seven churches will be blessed by the God that IS and WAS and IS coming…May peace be you from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness.”
From his blessing, John teaches who Jesus is and why he did what God asked of him. He tells us that Jesus was the FIRST to conquer death. What does that mean? The simple and obvious intention is that there will be others who will follow him. Who will follow him? Well, you of course, if you believe and obey God. He tells us that Jesus, the faithful witness, was the FIRST to conquer death. His intention is to say to us that all those who are also faithful witnesses will also follow Jesus and conquer death.
Further, he tells us that Jesus loves us and by his blood he set us free from our sins … and he lets us serve God his Father as priests.
Ok. I cut out the part of the phrase where John says, “He lets us rule as kings…” Let’s face it. That is the part you want to hear, and it is probably the only part of the text you have heard. “He lets us rule as Kings.” The problem is John doesn’t stop there. He ends his blessing by saying that Jesus set us free … to serve God as priests.
Does that frighten you? Does that make you fearful? Does that make you want to hide in a safe place? [make physical motion to the surrounding of the church]. It should. If Jesus had left us alone with nothing or no one to guide us, it should leave us fearful. However, that is not how Jesus set us free. He breathed on his disciples with the Holy Spirit, and he breathes it on you & I, too. He set us free to be God’s priests and to be his witnesses but not without support. Remember, Jesus had told us that he would be with us “…even until the end of the age.” We are not left alone.
But I ask you, are you still locked in an upper room? Why? Why are you still there? You have the perfect spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. It is a gift that is given you, breathed on you by the very breath of Christ. With all this to empower you, why are you still locked spiritlessly in the upper room? With the same Spirit that emboldened those fearful disciples to go out beyond their safe haven, to go out and witness about Jesus; with that same Spirit that Jesus has breathed on you, you are now called to share the story you believe – that you know to be true – and to be his witnesses. So, get out of here. Go and witness.
