Acts 1: 1-14

“You Shall Receive Power”

Dearly Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ the Lord,

            Years ago I saw a bumper sticker that made such an impression on me that I remember it to this day:  “The greatest argument against Christianity is the behavior of Jesus’ friends.”

            Bumper stickers don’t invite conversation, so I never got the chance to ask the driver of the car just what he meant.  Was he a Christian who was trying to poke fellow believers into acting more like Jesus?  Was he a non-believer who was tired of Christians pretending to be holy in church, then duking it out in the mud like everybody else the rest of the week?  For all I know maybe he had a sister who was born again and he was just trying to get under her craw.  Whatever the reason behind his posting of the provocation, the message was clear:  Jesus is OK; we’re not so OK.  In other words, Jesus could do really great things in the world if we just got out of his way.

            Jesus’ friends had seen him do some pretty great things.  They had walked with him, mile after dusty mile, from Galilee to Jerusalem and back again, and listened to his teaching along the way.  They had sailed with him on the stormy waters of the sea of Galilee – “peace, be still.”  And water into wine.  Lazarus, come forth!  He gave thanks, and blessed five loaves and two fishes.  It seemed that every time they turned around Jesus was demonstrating wisdom or power.  Surely he would be the one their grandparents had told them about:  “just wait, little Judah, someday, someone will come back and make things right.”  Surely he would pay back every Roman soldier for every time they spat out the words “dirty Jew”; Jesus would avenge the deaths of the hundreds whose heads Pontius Pilate ordered cut off and displayed on poles on the main road into Jerusalem, just to say “don’t mess with Rome!”  Jesus would turn shame into praise. And the nations would come to the light of Jesus, and kings would bow when he came to power, when he rode into Jerusalem, and threw Herod, that turncoat puppet, out of his lavish palace, and when he strode into the court of Pilate and dressed him down.  But you all know the story.  Herod and Pilate got tight.  They worked it out.  Jesus was killed on a Roman cross, at the order of a Roman governor.  Story over.  And as for the disciples, their greatest hope became their greatest disappointment.  They went home.

            But word came that Jesus had performed the greatest miracle of all:  he beat death itself.  He came back to his friends, and talked with them, and ate with them.  But all along, for week after wondrous week, the question lurked in the backs of their minds:  now, will you settle the score?  Now, you descendant of David, now will you set up your throne, and gather your scattered people?  Jesus, you’ve conquered every enemy:  do your thing!  Restore the kingdom of Israel!

            At which point, Jesus gets out of their way.

            And he opens the door to the great “meanwhile.”

            We know what it is to long for something like what the disciples envisioned; we know what it is to see visions, to dream dreams of the day when Jesus sets everything right. Our cup runneth over with Biblical visions, visions of the wolf lying down with the lamb, of people who once walked in darkness seeing a great light, visions of good news to the poor, freedom to the captives, sight to the blind, dancing for the crippled, visions of the hands of God wiping away every tear, for death shall be no more, neither shall there e mourning nor crying nor pain any more, visions of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven.  Soon and very soon – we are going to see the king.

            We are inspired by other visions, too:  a vision “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal’, the vision that our children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, visions of a people who will work together, pray together, struggle together, go to jail together, and stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”  Wonderful vision!

            Meanwhile, we’ve got work to do.

            Jesus has gotten out of our way, and we’ve got work to do.

            You know what “covering” means?  The dictionary puts it this way: to cover is “to take temporary charge of or responsibility for in place of another.”  It happens at work all the time; someone has to take the afternoon off, but her work still needs to get done, so the other folks say “I’ll cover your phone.”  “I’ll cover for you.”  Covering is all well and good when in the long run everybody pulls their weight.  “I’ll cover for you” usually comes with an unspoken “someday I’ll need you to cover for me.”

            Jesus isn’t going to cover.  He’s not going to do our work for us.  But he’s not going to let God’s work go undone, either.  “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. . .”  You shall receive power.  You long for the day when no one will go hungry?  You shall receive power to beat plowshares into pruning hooks.  You long for the day when people see each other as people made in God’s image, instead of seeing almond eyes or a dot in the forehead, instead of hearing a thick Spanish accent, instead of smelling garlic ooze through their pores?  You shall receive power to see as Christ sees.  You long for the day when poor people can get decent health care treatment in our hospitals – without well-to-do folks like us seething about the unfairness of why we have to pay more for “indigent care?”  You shall receive power to provide for the least of these.  You shall receive power.  You!  Does no good for us to stand around talking forever, moaning about how things should be better than they are, and not even for us to say the Lord’s prayer over and over and over again:  “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”  The kingdom of God does not consist of talk, but of power.

            Make no mistake about it, all this work is ours to do. Are we, or are we not, followers of Jesus? Do we, or do we not, dedicate ourselves to ‘renouncing ourselves, taking up our cross, and following him?’  All right then, get a load of what Jesus gave the disciples power to do:  “he . . . gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal.”  He sent them – or should I say he sends us? – to preach the kingdom of God and to heal. 

            It’s all well and good to be a Christian who reads the Upper Room every day, who comes to church once a week and puts a tenth of income into the offering plate, who pitches in on work bees and enjoys fellowship dinners.  Life can be tough, and we have to do all those sorts of things so that when we are friends in need, we have friends in deed.  But for the most part we’re pretty good at being stealth Christians.  We’re under the radar.  We don’t want our faith to be the blip that makes anyone’s eyebrows rise.  Our faith is very, very important to us; I don’t doubt that for a second.

            But Jesus said, “You shall receive power to be my witnesses.”  To bear witness.  To say what you have seen.  To testify to what you’ve experienced.  To tell the story.  To go public.

            You know, the power to name things is a very, very important power.  A mother can look at her child and name him “my beloved one,” or she can name him “you rotten kid.”  A principal can look at her teaching staff and name them “my colleagues” or “you employees.”  The power to bear witness to God’s kingdom changes the way you name the world, doesn’t it?  With this power, you look at a child made well in the hospital and say, “that’s God’s kingdom”.  You rejoice at apartheid crumbling in South Africa and say “that’s God’s kingdom.”  With this power, you see a broken marriage put back together and say:  “that’s God’s kingdom.”  With this power, you receive a loving touch from a stranger when you’re so hurt that you break down in the frozen food aisle and you say “she just made God’s kingdom come for me.”  With this power, you release a parent, a husband -- even a child -- into God’s hands with hope and name your loss, and say “that’s God’s kingdom, too.”

            Jesus has given you this power.  You have it.  You might not know that you have it; you might think that the only way you can see the world is the way your parents or the pundits tell you to see it.  Listen:  Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.  When Christ rose from the darkness of the tomb, he led us all out into the light of day, and gave us new eyes, resurrection eyes, eyes that see life when everyone else around you sees death.  You think you’re too weak to be a force for God’s kingdom, too weak to be a healer?  God chooses the weak to shame the strong!  You think you’re not smart enough, that your vision is too narrow?  God chooses the foolish to shame the wise!  You think you’re just one little person, that you can’t have much impact on the world?  God chooses what is low in the world to bring to nothing the powers that be!  You think your faith is too small, smaller than a tiny little mustard seed?  Then Jesus says, “all right then, move that mountain!”  If I were you, I’d be careful not to tell God you don’t think you have the power to bear witness to God’s kingdom, that you can’t be a healer.  If the record is any indication, our God will say “that’s exactly why I’m calling you.”

            “You shall receive power.”  I guess the only question left is, what are you doing with that power?  No question you have it.  What are you doing with it?  I know you’re not hiding it under a bushel basket.  I know you’re not keeping it on the down low.  You know that such power, the power of God, is a terrible thing to waste.  You know that “of all the tales of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.”

            Please, let’s conspire to get my unknown friend a new bumper sticker:  “mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Amen.