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The Second Sunday Of Easter
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery hast established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Second Sunday Of Easter
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A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
✛
You Are My Witnesses.
In 1947 a movie came out that has become a Christmas classic: Miracle on 34th Street. You probably know the story: Macy’s hires a man named Kris Kringle to play Santa Claus at its midtown department store. The problem? Kris really believes he is Santa Claus, and winds up as a defendant in a court of law attempting to prove his identity. Evidence is presented, witnesses are called, and in the end, Kris is vindicated. Yes, there is a Santa Claus, and it is he.
Now, I know it is Easter, and not Christmas, but this particular courtroom drama surrounding the identity of an individual is a close and somewhat contemporary illustration of our first lesson from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
The setting is a trial. The courtroom is filled with the nations of the earth, particularly, Israel and its neighbors, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt. The God of Israel is prosecuting the gods of the nations to prove his own identity as the one, true, and living God. The first part of the trial begins in an earlier chapter than the one we heard, and in it God asks the idols if they can point to one thing they have foretold, said or done to prove that the nations’ faith in them is well founded:
Set forth your case, says the Lord;
bring your proofs… and tell us
what is to happen.
Or, tell us former things, what they are,
that we may consider them,
that we may know their outcome;
or declare to us the things to come.
Tell us what is to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are gods;
do good, or do harm,
that we may be dismayed and terrified.
Behold, you are nothing,
and your work is less than nothing;
an abomination is he who chooses you.
Then turning to Israel, the Lord declares,
“You are my witnesses,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me.
I, I am the Lord,
and besides me there is no savior.
You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and I am God.
The Lord appeals to his own preexistence, his own foreknowledge, his own purposes and promises, and the fulfillment of them. No other god has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand; marked off the heavens with a span; enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure; weighed the mountains in scales.
But it is not just his own powerful existence that God appeals to; it is his desire to save. No other god promised Abraham that he would father a nation. No other god delivered this nation of nobodies from slavery in Egypt. No other god offered Israel an everlasting and personal covenant. Baal didn’t establish the throne of David. Ishtar didn’t foretell the Babylonian captivity, and Marduk will not restore the kingdom after the exile. Israel’s personal experience of salvation should bear testimony that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the living God, the only God.
But for the present Israel appears as passive and reluctant witnesses. They are blind and deaf, refusing to see and to hear their Lord, to remember his mighty acts, to attend to his purposes, to put their trust in his saving power. But God brings them forward anyway, so that they may see and hear, that they may know and believe and understand. God is not finished with them yet. He will work, and no one will prevent it.
For the Lord intends to reach these people once and for all, and to teach the people in the flesh, so that they can go, therefore, to teach the nations. Becoming incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lord will teach his disciples that the words he spoke through the prophet Isaiah finds its fulfillment in his incarnate existence and in his saving work on the cross and in his resurrection.
It was after his resurrection, and moments before his ascension into heaven that Jesus gathered his disciples around him for the last time, and said to them: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Whatever the faults of the disciples before the resurrection, now having seen and handled the risen Lord, these were not passive and reluctant witnesses, they were not blind and deaf. They were men and women on fire, missionaries, indwelled by the power of the Holy Spirit, and they went forth with courage, and without apology, into the all the world proclaiming, by the power of the Holy Spirit, this good news of Jesus Christ. They exhorted people in every tribe, and nation to believe in Jesus to the end that those who heard even just the testimony about Jesus would also believe and understand and know that Jesus Christ is Lord. And witnesses, just like those first apostles, have been called forth in every generation since then, right down to this very moment for a testimony.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may know, and believe, and understand, and have fellowship with us in Christ.
But, since I began with an allusion to a trial, I’ll close with an objection. It’s all very well for the eyewitnesses to the resurrection to believe in the Lord. They walked with him, talked with him, ate with him, saw with their eyes, heard with their ears, handled with their hands. Seeing always seems to make for easier believing. What about us apostles born out of time, as it were? Never fear, Jesus had us every much in mind as he taught his first witnesses. The Lord said to our own patron saint, Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
That’s a blessing well worth claiming. By the grace of God, I believe, and so I have written these words that I have spoken to you today, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
