Sermons

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Sunday 4 May at 10am

Kathryn Elliott
Readings: Acts 1.6-14; John 17.1-11

You will be my witnesses…

A group of Christians recently met together in one of their homes to discuss how their church would go about mission. It was the first of several meetings and they had already decided that at this initial meeting, they would share their testimonies. After all, that is one aspect of mission: to be ready to tell others about how they became Christians and to share their experience of Jesus. They arrived at the meeting with detailed written testimonies - childhood experiences, significant dates, people and places all of which had led them to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 'You have all come well prepared,' the leader observed, 'but tell me, how has Jesus been important to you in your life this week.

Last Thursday, the worldwide church celebrated Jesus' ascension which marks the end of his time on earth and his ascending to his father's throne.

God exalted him to the highest place, wrote Paul to the Philippians, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2.9-11)

Luke describes in Acts 1 Jesus being taken up and tells of the disciples looking intently up into the sky as he was going.

Looking up, taken up: height and depth, up and down are metaphors for lesser or greater degrees of honour. Jesus' life, death and resurrection brought glory to God - Jesus confirmed this in his prayer:
I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do (John 17.4)

Now it is the disciples who have work to do. They are to be witnesses: witnesses where they are, that is in Jerusalem; then further afield - Judaea and Samaria; culminating in witness which will encompass the whole world - the ends of the earth (Acts 1.8) The book of Acts is the story of how that witness took place in the years after Jesus' ascension. It is the story of the early disciples telling how Jesus is alive in their experience.

Two great words are used by Luke in Acts: martus and marturion. martus means 'one who has information or knowledge of a thing or a person, who can give information , who can bring something to light, or confirm something; marturion indicates testimony, testimony stated from direct experience and knowledge.

In Acts, we find several examples of the apostles telling of their experiences of Jesus, eg when Peter addresses the crowd after he and the apostles had received the Holy Spirit:
God has raised this Jesus to life and we are witnesses to this fact (Acts 2.32)
Paul in his speech in the synagogue at Antioch, explained,
God raised Jesus from the dead and for many days was seen by those who had travelled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people - we tell you the Good News (Acts 13.31,2)
Later, Paul gave his testimony to King Agrippa and witnessed to his own experience of Jesus (Acts 26.11)

In our Anglican lectionary just this past week, we have acknowledged and given thanks for the work and witness of Philip and James, Apostles, Peter Chanel, missionary and martyr who died in 1841,
Catherine of Siena, teacher of the faith, d 1830
and Pandita Ramabai, translator, d 1922.
We are indeed 'surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses' (Heb 12.1.)

There are nine days between Ascension day and Pentecost. We are encouraged to regard them as 'days of prayer and preparation to celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit' who is a gift from God to aid us in our witness of Jesus.

Let us turn for a minute to our Gospel reading. It is curious that we are taken back in time to just after the Last Supper, immediately before Jesus' passion; yet perhaps it is not unfitting because in this, the longest of Jesus' recorded prayers and known as the 'High Priestly Prayer,' Jesus is praying that God may be glorified by the completion of his work on earth, that is to say, the completion of revealing God's love and offer of eternal life. He prays too for his disciples who are entrusted to continue his and his Father's work. Jesus included us in that prayer too, for later on in John 17, we read, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message (v 29)

Some of us have become Christians through the witness of someone's testimony or lifestyle, maybe through musical testimony or the Arts; perhaps the beauty of nature has revealed God to others. Now it is our turn to share our story and our experience of Jesus.

How has Jesus been important to you this week?

Heavenly Father,
In the week ahead, help us to prepare and pray as we await the gift of the Holy Spirit who will empower us to be faithful witnesses to Jesus and his resurrection

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay