Last week
was the second Sunday of Easter and so Joe very appropriately spoke to us about
the post resurrection appearance of Jesus to the doubting Thomas. If you missed
his talk you can catch it on our website, and also the excellent study notes
and questions that accompanied it. We also issue those study notes, as you can
see, with your notice sheets and I should warn you that the sidesmen are under
strict instructions from the churchwardens not only to check that you have
remembered to hand in your hymn books but also to take away with you the study
notes – just the thing for coffee breaks, train journeys, etc! (Schwarzeneger)
This week we
meet Jesus again as he appears to a group of his followers - not just the
apostles; indeed some of the apostles were absent at the time. It must have
been for all of them a time of conflicting and perplexing emotions: his sudden
arrival in the midst of them found them believing and unbelieving, startled and
joyful and afraid all at once. (verses 34, 36, 42) A good deal of emotional
confusion then! And it seems clear that until this point the nature and purpose
of the Church - which is what this little group was - were to them a closed
book. So Jesus does a number of things
here to reassure them, and to give them hope and confidence for the future.
First, he
provides proof that he is not a ghost but alive, albeit in a new way. (Verses
39 – 43) And straightway here you and I have sufficient answers to two
questions I - and I am sure you too - am often asked. ‘How can you believe in
the resurrection?’ and ‘What will our resurrected bodies be like?’
We may
reasonably and rationally believe in the resurrection of Jesus because of the testimony
of reliable witnesses. Yes, it was prophesied and promised in the Old Testament
and by Jesus himself (v 44); but the main ground of our belief is the testimony
of reliable witnesses – men and women who had, in worldly terms, nothing to
gain by believing but everything to lose: and of course many did, including
their lives – as still is the case today.(30cases) (doc)
As for our
resurrection bodies, we can at least say that we shall be recognisable, we will
not be subject to some of the physical constraints that we now have, and we
shall be our perfect or perfected selves with no more room for pride and sin. I
don’t think we can reasonably say much more than that but that all sounds
pretty reassuring and exciting to me!
Secondly,
Jesus v45 ‘opened their minds to understand the scriptures’, just as he still
does today for all those who seek him with a humble and grateful heart. And
thirdly, he promises them ‘power from on high’ – a reiteration of the promise he
made before his resurrection – that power without which we cannot hope to be
effective followers of Jesus.
And so,
revitalised with this new confidence and power, he is able to commission them (v
49) to go out into the world with the ‘good news’ of God’s offer of forgiveness
and reconciliation with him for all people who are willing to repent and believe
this good news.(v47).
What we find
here then in this passage are what I would want to call the essential building
blocks for a healthy and effective church which, of necessity and by Jesus’
definition, needs to be a growing
one.
What are
these building blocks, these essential elements?
Well, first,
as I have already mentioned, is the fact
of the resurrection. Without the resurrection, Christianity is little more than
wishful-thinking and, as Paul reminds us, ‘we of all men are to be the most pitied’.
Secondly, (v49)
we will get nowhere in the Christian life either personally or as a church
unless we are ‘clothed with power from on high’. But we have to put on clothes
when they are laid out for us; we have to receive gifts that we are offered to
us.
Thirdly, we
are to proclaim only what we have
been authorised and commissioned to do. There have probably been better,
bigger, sharper minds in the Church than Peter and Paul and John; but have they
used their minds faithfully? That is the question we need to ask. We need to
question, where appropriate and in ways that are appropriate, scientific,
academic, political, social, and sexual agendas both outside and inside the
Church and ask if their theories and assertions conform or conflict with the
teaching of Christ.
Fourthly, we
need to realise that we exist as a Church primarily for the benefit of
outsiders. The purpose of the Church is primarily
evangelistic, to share the good news of Jesus with others, to introduce
them to him and, I would want to add, not on our terms or their terms but on his terms. Why? Because that is the
only way in which we can be sure that we are being faithful, that we are not
putting unnecessary obstacles in the path of their hearing the good news, and
that we are not allowing any unchristian ideas or programmes to alter or
waterdown the gospel.
And finally,
just as we need to proclaim the fact of the resurrection of Jesus, so we need
to proclaim its spiritual or theological meaning and significance. And as soon
as we mention the resurrection we must of necessity mention Good Friday and the
cross because they are the two sides of the same coin of God’s perfect love for
mankind, a perfect and perfectly just love which is mankind’s only hope, a hope
that you and I are called to proclaim to them. Or to put it another way – ‘to
love my neighbour as myself.’
Now what we
do have to understand is that churches that are not built of these building
blocks or which think that they can do without one or more of the blocks will
be very much less than healthy and effective in some measure. It works like
this: a church that is not growing is not an effective church; and a church that
is not an effective church cannot be healthy. Why? Because it is going against
its very nature and reason for living!
Jesus here
and elsewhere has given us his plan
and purpose for his church. That
this plan and purpose has been hijacked by many in the past – and still is
today – by personal or political or social or other agendas within the Church
and its hierarchy ought to warn us of the need constantly to remain faithful to
the teaching of Jesus and his original witnesses, the Apostles, and to judge
such agendas or innovations by their teaching alone. We can only be a healthy
and effective Church if we remain faithful to that teaching and put it into
practice in our lives and in the life of our church.
So you see
to make the excuse that ‘I do not know enough to share the Gospel with others’
or that ‘I do not have enough time’, or that ‘ God hasn’t asked me to do that’
or that ‘other people are not my responsibility’ not only contradicts the clear
teaching of Jesus and undermines his Church, it also prevents us from
experiencing the peace of knowing that we are forgiven and reconciled, the joy
in knowing and serving him, and the assurance that all will indeed be well.
What is worse is that such attitudes actually serve to rob others of these
precious gifts God longs for them to experience for themselves because they can only know them if we are prepared to share them. Jesus
calls this ‘producing fruit that will last’.
Jesus actually told a parable to illustrate these home truths. Luke has
it earlier in his gospel in Chapter 13. It is the ‘Parable of the Fig Tree’.
The point Jesus wants to make to his listeners is that the fig tree was not
producing what it was created to produce; this is why the threat lies over it
from the vineyard owner because it is simply taking up valuable space, space
where new, fruitful fig trees could be planted. And in Matthew’s gospel the
threat is symbolically carried out when Jesus causes the fig tree to wither and
die because he ‘found nothing at all on it but leaves’. Now I agree that fig
trees in leaf are very pleasant on the eye: but we are called not be eye candy either for ourselves or for others
but to be ‘fruitful’, to be effective. And the only way that we can do so
personally and as the local church family is by building with the building
blocks Jesus has given us in order to be his people, his Church.
So we may
well and constructively ask ourselves, v38 ‘Why are we frightened, and why do
doubts arise in our hearts?’ It is as we spend time in prayer, in the study of
the teaching of Jesus and his apostles, in loving our neighbour as ourself, and
in being willing to stand up for and be known as his that we shall discover the same peace, confidence, assurance,
power, and hope that transformed this small, motley group into one that turned
the world upside down. That much that passes for Christianity in England, as
Charles Moore said in the Sunday Telegraph a little while back, is a tame,
respectable, and pale imitation of the real thing I found a sobering reminder and a wake up call that the world
needs you and me just as much today as it needed that small, motley group then.
So, just leaves or fruit? That’s the question we need to ask ourselves today.
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