God Prays for Us

Many of my sermons include a call to love each other. The passage for today from John 17 has been called “the high priestly prayer of Jesus”, in which Jesus prays for unity. We could focus on that unity and preach another sermon on love, but our text stops before those appeals. Our ability to love each other is based on the deeper truth that God takes care of us. This morning, I want to reflect on an essential fact of the Christian life – that Jesus is on our side.

John 17

The high priestly prayer is set in the context of the Last Supper. In John 13, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and eats his last meal with them. In chapter 14, Jesus tells the disciples that he is the way to God and that he himself is going to God. He promises them the “advocate”, the Holy Spirit, who will remain with them after he is gone. The chapter ends with the words, “Come now, let us leave”, which sounds as though they are headed to the Garden of Gethsemane.

In chapter 15, however, they remain in the house together and Jesus teaches them about the true vine (himself) and its branches (the disciples). He repeats his call for them to love each other and promises them that the Holy Spirit will help them to overcome the hatred found in this world. Chapter 16 then finishes this time of teaching as Jesus says again that he must leave them so that the Holy Spirit (or Comforter) may come. He tells them that the time of grief they are entering will end and they will be filled with joy as God fills them with God’s love.

Following this extended time of teaching, preparing his disciples for his coming death, Jesus starts to pray to his Father. The verses we read are the beginning of this prayer.

• Verses 1 to 5: Jesus prays that God will glorify him so that he may glorify God. All that will happen is for the greater glory of God. All that he has done in his life – his teaching, his miracles, and finally his death and resurrection – has been to bring glory to God.
• Verses 6 to 8: The centre of his work has been to reveal God to the disciples. They now become the ones through whom God is seen in this world. They know what Jesus has taught, and they believe that Jesus reveals God.
• Verses 9 to 11: Now that his work here is done, Jesus is ready to go through the culmination of his life, his death on the cross. He asks that God’s Spirit will now care for the disciples and give them strength and courage to do God’s work in the world.

For our purposes this morning, I observe simply that Jesus prayed for his disciples, and he continues to pray for us – to be on our side as we live in this space between his ascension into Heaven and his return “in the same way as he was taken up from his disciples” (Acts 1: 11).

Psalm 68

The verses we read from Psalm 68 state this truth as a song of triumph and joy. God is on our side! God is for us! When we feel that all is lost, we know that God is with us. When outward circumstances threaten to destroy us, we know that God will save us. From the way Jesus prays in John 17, we know that he sees saving us as his greatest work, bringing glory to God. Unity and love are God’s gift, given through the Holy Spirit, to help us in times of distress and danger.

Linking with Ascension

Last Thursday was Ascension Day in the church’s calendar. Reflecting on Jesus’ ascension into Heaven can help us grasp how God is available to us in times of danger and how God helps us in our distress. Acts 1: 1 to 11 recounts the ascension of Jesus most fully. Jesus spent 40 days with the disciples after his resurrection. He taught them about God’s Reign in this world and repeated the promise of God’s Holy Spirit, a promise that also figures prominently in John’s Gospel.

All this talk about God’s Reign and the promise of the Holy Spirit starts the disciples thinking, and they ask if now is the time that Rome will be expelled and Israel will again be free as God’s kingdom. Jesus redirects their thoughts – as he had done so many times throughout his ministry – from this political manifestation to the birth and ministry of the church. They are to be God’s witnesses as God’s Reign spreads throughout the earth, filled with God’s Spirit: A social and theological reign, rather than a political plan.

Then Jesus ascended from them into Heaven. We don’t know exactly what “taken up” means, since Heaven is not in the sky; rather Heaven is a dimension beyond our present existence, as close as our own skin, but as far away as our minds can make it. The veil between this life and the next was made thin, and Jesus rose before them into another dimension or plane of existence. They watched and watched, until “two men dressed in white” (we can assume angels) sent them on their way with the promise of Jesus’ return.

What’s It All About?

God is on our side. Great! God’s presence with us is guaranteed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Wonderful! Jesus will return and end all danger and distress in our world. That is really good news! But what’s it all about? Why do we even need to remind each other of these things?

Consider the way people feel stretched and distressed at the moment. I know of one work group who were Zooming together. One of them broke down crying as he described the stress of working at home, as the boundaries have become blurred between home life and work life. He had to leave the meeting because he was feeling the stress so deeply. I think of others in our community who have experienced loss – such as one who had to bury a parent with a few close relatives at the funeral, while other well-wishers attended only online.

We could name other losses and problems within our congregation, but we have care groups and deacons as places where we talk about those struggles more fully. We speak about such things in public only with the permission of the individuals involved. Nevertheless, we know that they are part of our lives, and many people feel a level of stress that is hard to describe. We don’t want to make a fuss, but we know we need help. So, what should we do? How do we respond as people who believe in Jesus and live under the Rule of God?

A Digression

Let’s take a rabbit trail, which should bring us back out on to the main road: the question, “Why did Jesus ascend into Heaven?” Jesus came into our world to bring us the good news of God’s Reign. “Repent! The kingdom of God is here!” In his death, Jesus took the sins of the world into himself, reconciling the world to God. In his resurrection, he defeated sin, death, and hell.

Why then did Jesus not stay with us? Risen from the grave, he could have ruled over all creation as the eternal and triumphant Son of God. Instead, he went away. Why? In John’s gospel he says that he goes away so that the Holy Spirit can come, but if Jesus had stayed with us, we would have the fullness of God present and would not need anything else. Why did he leave?

The text does not really give an answer. Here is my speculation, based on a common way of understanding this matter down through the centuries. When Jesus returns “in power and great glory”, the time for choice is past. As Paul puts it in Philippians 2, “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Another term for the return of Christ. When Jesus returns, everyone will see the choice that they have made in this life – to follow God or to turn away from God. C.S. Lewis portrays this event in a remarkable way at the end of the final book in the Narnia Series. I adapt his picture this way: At the end of time, when Jesus returns, every person on earth will walk past him and look him in the face. Everyone will recognize Jesus for who he is, the Eternal and Glorious Son of God. Some will recognize Jesus and know that they love him: They will enter God’s presence forever. Some will recognize Jesus and know that they hate him: They are banished from God’s presence forever. There will be no choice in that moment; rather each one will discover and see clearly the choice that each one has made throughout life.

Jesus left his disciples and this world in order to create the space within which we can choose to follow him or not. He gives us the Holy Spirit because no one can choose to follow God without God’s help. He removes the full glory of God’s presence in the person of the Risen Lord because that presence would overwhelm our senses and we would lose the power of choice.

There is great mystery in all of this – that God should give us the dignity of choosing to follow, that God should agree that we may reject or accept God: this is mystery beyond words. It is also at the heart of reality. When Jesus returns, the time for choice is past; while Jesus is gone and we have God’s Spirit, God also gives us the time and ability to choose for or against God.

Back to the Main Road

The great danger of our lives is that we may choose against God without even realizing what we are doing. We have good intentions, as they say. We want to do good things, but we are faced with the pressures of daily life. Over time, we become less and less aware of God, so that when we finally come face-to-face with God, we don’t like what we see. We become caught up in the struggles of our time, and we forget the most important relationship of all.

Think of it this way. I don’t turn off my computer at night anymore; I just let it “go to sleep”. The trouble is that computers gradually build up little bits of information in their “random access memory”, and these extra unneeded bits of information gradually clog up the computer’s ability to run. Occasionally, my computer gets so full of stuff it doesn’t need that I can see a lag of five seconds or so between typing something and the words appearing on the screen. When this happens, the best thing to do is turn the computer off, which lets it dump all the information it no longer needs. When you turn it back on, it runs almost as good as new! One of the first pieces of advice that IT support gives you is to reboot your computer. It’s amazing what a reboot can fix!

One way that we could respond to all that has happened is by stopping our frantic rush to do things and listen for God’s voice and dwell in God’s presence. We can, if you will, accept the lockdown as an opportunity to reboot the computer of our minds and allow our souls to shed all of the busy-ness that has taken over our lives. We can choose to experience this time of trouble as God’s grace, reminding us to dwell in God’s presence and in the fountainhead of God’s love.

The Province of Manitoba has announced various relaxations of the lockdown. We are watching people across Canada and the United States emerging from their homes, wondering how we are supposed to live in the “new normal”. It has struck me how many people want to pick up where they left off with no change. They have a chance to reboot their lives, and they say, “No!”

When my computer freezes and I have to shut it off by unplugging it completely, it asks me a question when I turn it back on: “Do you want to restore the pages you were working on?” There are those who treat the lockdown that way: Restore the pages I was working on! Give me my life back, with all of the overwork and stress and everything else! I don’t want to learn anything!

Conclusion

The miracle is that God gives us choice. Just as Jesus did in the Ascension, God withdraws enough for us to decide what we want to do. God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us to re-orient our lives around God, but God will not compel us to do so. When Jesus returns, all choice is over. Meanwhile, we can choose to embrace God, to reboot our lives, to restore the original operating system with which God made us.

A few evenings ago, I made a mistake typing on the computer. It was a simple mistake, and the level of frustration that I felt was out of proportion to the actual problem. Afterwards, Lois asked me, “Why were you so upset?” It felt much bigger than it was, because we are under a lot of stress after two months of lockdown. I am under less stress than many. I think of those whose business is threatened by the measures we have taken as a province, or those who are out of work, or those who have lost loved ones, or those who live alone, or those who have had to work on the front lines of the pandemic. It’s not surprising if we experience a collective breakdown. A news report on Thursday said: “It’s estimated that roughly 11 million Canadians will experience ‘high levels of stress in family and work settings,’ according to Health Canada data revealed to Global News. Close to two million Canadians are predicted to show signs of ‘traumatic stress.’” That’s somewhere around 30% who face debilitating stress. These are people we know.

My message this morning is one of faith and of hope. We are experiencing the stage in which Jesus withdraws into Heaven; we also have the promise of God’s continued presence through God’s Spirit; we know that Jesus will return. Our task is to become silent in God’s presence, knowing that God gives us space to choose God’s love and care. During the going deeper time, perhaps we can explore how we do this. It is a great opportunity, but it is also a challenging and frightening time. Perhaps I can say it best in the words of a hymn (#502 in HWB):

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, wean it from earth, through all its pulses move.

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art, and make me love you as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, no sudden rending of the veil of clay,

no angel visitant, no opening skies; but take the dimness of my soul away.

Hast thou not bid us love you, God and King? All, all thine own, soul, heart, and strength and mind;

I see the cross, there teach my heart to cling. O let me seek thee and O let me find!

Teach me to feel that you are always nigh; teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,

To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Teach me to love thee as thine angels love, one holy passion filling all my frame;

The baptism of the heaven-descended Dove; my heart an altar, and thy love the flame.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

24 May 2020

Texts

Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. A song.

¹ May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him. ² May you blow them away like smoke—as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. ³ But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful.

⁴ Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds;
    rejoice before him—his name is the Lord. ⁵ A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. ⁶ God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

⁷ When you, God, went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, ⁸ the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. ⁹ You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance. ¹⁰ Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

…

³² Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord, ³³ to him who rides across the highest heavens, the ancient heavens, who thunders with mighty voice. ³⁴ Proclaim the power of God, whose majesty is over Israel, whose power is in the heavens. ³⁵ You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people. Praise be to God!

John 17:1-11

Jesus Prays to Be Glorified

17 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. ² For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. ³ Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. ⁴ I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

⁶ “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸ For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. ¹¹ I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

Going Deeper Questions

1. What do the ascension and the second coming of Jesus mean to you?

2. How have these been preached in your experience?

3. I suggest that the pandemic is actually God’s gift to help us discover God’s presence. How does this claim fit with your experience? 

4. “God is on our side.” How does this claim fit with your experience?

Clothed with Power from on High

Introduction

My original title was “The Christians’ New Clothes”, which I changed to “Clothed With Power From On High”. I thought of the first title because of a practice I learned about some years ago. Among the Nisga’a, Gitsan, and Tsimshian nations there is a cleansing ritual when someone has sinned against his/her family and the community. For example, if a man commits adultery and later wants to be fully reintegrated into the community, he undergoes this cleansing ritual. (Described for me at a NAIITS conference at , September 2004, by Joe, a native of the Tsimshian First Nation living among the Gitsan people.) Here is the ritual:

• Confession to elder in the family and to the chief of the tribe – public ceremony in which his close relatives circle him – conversation with the aunties and uncles who tell him what he did while his old clothes are taken off – a new set of clothes, purchased by the family put on him – accepted back into the community as a new person – the offence may never be referred to again – ceremony paid for by the family – all present throw money into a basket to help out with the ceremony.

I describe this ritual to set the stage for our texts. We are people who have confessed our rebellion and God wants to dress us with new clothes: power from on high.

Ascension Sunday serves as the first church’s introduction to the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus stopped appearing to the disciples after his resurrection—and we call this stopping the ascension—the Holy Spirit came to continue his presence with the church. Now it’s a curious thing that the ascension of Jesus is recorded only in Luke’s writing. I don’t know why Matthew and John do not refer to it. Mark ends his story with the resurrection itself, but Matthew and John could have referred to it, and don’t. The longer ending of Mark refers to it, but this is Luke’s story, so this morning we heard passages from Luke 24 and Acts 1.

In these two chapters I observe three basic ideas:

1. Walk: Jesus walked through the Scriptures with the disciples. We study the Bible together.

2. Wait: Jesus told the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit. We wait for God’s presence together.

3. Witness: Jesus told the disciples that the Spirit would make them witnesses. We witness to God’s Spirit together.

These three themes together describe who we are when we are “clothed with power from on high.”

Walk Through the Bible

On the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13 to 35), we read: “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” As Jesus walked with the two disciples, he walked them through their Scriptures—our Old Testament. In Luke 24: 44-45 we read: “He said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” In Acts 1 Luke covers the same time period. Observe the action there. Verse 3 reads: “He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” We can take it that this instruction was expanding their understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The disciples knew their Scriptures well, but they had not thought through what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah. After the resurrection, Jesus took them back through their Scriptures, rereading the Hebrew Bible with this new information—that the whole book was fulfilled in him. Paul went through a similar process when he was converted. In Galatians 1 Paul says,

¹¹ I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. ¹² I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. ¹³ For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴ I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. ¹⁵ But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased ¹⁶ to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. ¹⁷ I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

¹⁸ Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. ¹⁹ I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. ²⁰ I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

The highlighted section gives a period of three years during which Paul was doing something. Arabia (verse 17) probably means what we call Saudi Arabia—desert. What was Paul doing for these three years, a part of it in the desert? I think he was re-evaluating his life. He had defended the Hebrew Scriptures and traditions against all comers, but now he had to re-interpret them. He fought against Jesus and the disciples because he thought they blasphemed against God, but once he accepted Jesus as divine, he had to find out how the Hebrew Scriptures foretold him. In short, he was doing what the disciples were doing with Jesus in Luke 24 and Acts 1. Study the Scriptures to find Jesus and know Jesus better. Walk through the Bible with God and with each other.

Wait for the Spirit

In both Luke 24 and Acts 1 Jesus tells the disciples to wait for the promised Holy Spirit.

Luke 24: 49, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” The promise of course is the Holy Spirit. The city is Jerusalem. The  command is, “Wait in the city.”

Acts 1: 4 and 5, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Again, the gift is the Spirit. The city is Jerusalem. The command is, “Wait for the gift.”

Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem. Jerusalem as the city of God represents the place where we meet God. As we walk through the Bible together, we wait in God’s presence for God’s Spirit. We don’t read in order to go out and do something dramatic. We don’t worship here together on Sundays and meet at other times in order to do something dramatic. We read and sing and pray and worship is how we wait for God’s Spirit.

Sometimes people try to turn this waiting for the Spirit into a system—whether the Keswick view of the higher life or a more extreme view of perfectionism as developed in some Wesleyan circles. Hear me carefully, you cannot put the Holy Spirit into a box and control the moving of the Spirit. Rather we wait for the Spirit to move, and then we follow. An old hymn says it:

Hover o’er me, Holy Spirit, Bathe my trembling heart and brow;

Fill me with Thy hallowed presence, Come, O come and fill me now.

Refrain

Fill me now, fill me now, Jesus, come and fill me now;

Fill me with Thy hallowed presence, Come, O come, and fill me now.

I am weakness, full of weakness, At Thy sacred feet I bow;

Blest, divine, eternal Spirit, Fill with power and fill me now.

Refrain

It’s an old campground hymn, and easily becomes emotional and sentimental, but the idea is right. When we focus on action and results, rather than waiting in God’s presence for God’s Spirit, we lose the power of resurrection joy, which God wants to give to us. Instead, waiting and doing go together. We wait for God while we do the work of each day. Waiting is the condition of our lives, the space within which we anticipate God’s renewed coming into our lives repeatedly.

Witness!

The disciples misunderstood the point of waiting for the Spirit. They immediately jumped back into ideas that Jesus had worked so hard for three years to remove. They thought the gift of the Spirit meant that now the kingdom would come in power and Jesus would reign with them forever. Jesus rebuked them—again—and gave them the real purpose of waiting for the Spirit: Witness!

Think of what a witness is. Imagine that as one of you was walking up to the church today you saw an accident. Two cars driving down Oakwood got too close when passing so that they hit each other. It looks like a pretty bad accident.  Imagine that I was sitting in the office going over my sermon to be ready to preach. You come in to the office and tell me what happened and then call the ambulance and the police. When the police come, who will they want to talk to? They might ask me, “What happened?” I reply, “So-and-so came in and told me that two cars hit each other.” Immediately they want to talk to the person who saw the accident. I am not a witness. I only heard about it.

That’s what’s going on here. The disciples were witnesses to Jesus’ earthly life, as well as to his death and resurrection, but God wanted something more. God wanted to make them witnesses to the continued presence of Jesus through the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended into heaven. They could not witness to this reality until they experienced it. That is why they had to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit. Only then could they say, “We have something to tell you!” In chapter 2, that is exactly what happened.

Is any of this for us?

A fair question asks if any of this applies to us, or if this just tells what happened to the first disciples. This is where Ephesians 1 comes in. here the text again:

¹⁵ For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, ¹⁶ I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. ¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength ²⁰ he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ²² And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Paul wants the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit, just like the first church. Paul himself did not see Jesus in his earthly life. He came on the scene just after the resurrection, and met Jesus on the road to Damascus. If walk—wait—witness applied only to the first disciples, then it did not apply to Paul. But clearly Paul sees this response to Jesus’ resurrection to include him, and in Ephesians 1 he applies the same filling of the Spirit to the new Christians in Ephesus. Is this pattern for us? Short answer: You bet it is!

Clothed With Power from On High

When we walk in the Scriptures together, when we wait in God’s presence together, we become God’s witnesses together, “clothed with power from on high.” Different theologians have used a similar set of terms to say what we would look like. John Stott has a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, which he refers to as God’s way for the counter-culture of the church. Larry Miller (of MWC) refers to the church as the microsociety in the macrosociety, showing what God’s reign looks like. Michael Goheen (who used to be theologian at Trinity Western) calls the church a contrast society that lives in contrast with the world around us.

You see, Jesus is the incarnation of God. Jesus shows us what God looks like in human flesh. The church is the incarnation of God’s reign, as in Ephesians 1:22-23, where we are called “the body of Christ.” Our job is to show the world what God’s reign look like in human flesh. When we are clothed with power from on High, when we are filled with the Spirit, we become God’s people, making God’s reign visible in our lives.

I think of the church that I come from, the Brethren in Christ. In Ontario we were called Tunkers (from the practice of baptizing by trine immersion), or sometimes just “plain people.” I read somewhere about the attitude of their neighbours in the Niagara Peninsula. Someone was talking to the customs and immigration official at Niagara Falls about the Tunkers, and the customs officials said something like, “Oh we never worry about the plain people. Every year at their Love Feast, they come to make right anything they brought over the border in the previous year.”

What happened was this. Someone might bring something in from New York State without declaring it properly, but every year at Love Feast the brothers and sisters examined their consciences. Then they went to the customs officials to pay duty on everything they might not have declared. Their behaviour might cause a certain amount of laughter among more sophisticated folk, but they were clothed with God’s Holy Spirit, and they knew what God wanted them to do.

That’s what the first church was like too. Acts 1 to 4 tell us that they cared for all their poor people, because they were “clothed with power from on high.” A famous quote from Julian, a Roman ruler from the fourth century states: “These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.” After warning us not to idealize the first Christians, Stephen Neill describes them like this:

In those days to be a Christian meant something. Doubtless among the pagans there were many who lived upright and even noble lives. Yet all our evidence goes to show that in that decaying world sexual laxity had gone almost to the limits of the possible, and that slavery had brought with it the inevitable accompaniments of cruelty and the cheapening of the value of human life. Christians were taught to regard their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. The Church did not attempt to forbid or abolish slavery; it drew the sting of it by reminding masters and slaves alike that they had a common Master...and that they were brothers in the faith. (A History of Christian Missions, page 41.)

This was the period in which Christianity conquered the Roman world through love. That conquest led to major problems, most notably the way that true Christian faith became a political matter rather than a relationship with God. But it shows also how thoroughly the church can influence our world—this counter-cultural microsociety living in contrast with the world around us. Like the first disciples, we walk with each other in God’s Written Word, we wait with each other in God’s presence, and we witness the reality of God’s reign in our lives. We are clothed with power from on high.

8 May 2016: Ascension Sunday

Grace Bible Church

Texts: Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53