“The most radical revolution”, part 2/3
Text: Acts
1.1-11
Chosen
Isn’t it thrilling to be chosen for
something? Perhaps it was getting picked
by a sports team, maybe it was being selected to act in a play, perhaps it was
getting a job after successfully navigating a competitive hiring process, maybe
it was getting proposed to (or receiving a positive answer to your proposal), perhaps
it was being promoted to a position of greater responsibility or
leadership. Whatever it may have been,
it’s almost always a rewarding experience to be selected to use one’s
abilities to contribute to the success of a group, an organization…or a couple.
Being chosen is the fun part. But what about what happens from that point
on? A lesson that the Bible teaches again
and again is that those who are chosen by God are not usually chosen for their strengths,
talents or the usual reasons why we get chosen for various things in life. In the Bible, God chooses people, not because
of who they are or because of what they can do; rather, God chooses people
because he is merciful…and because he is humble. God has always desired to involve his human,
image-bearing creatures in his projects and in his plan of salvation. The God of the Bible doesn’t seem to like to “go
it alone”. Ultimately, God became a
human being in order to save the world. Lest
we make the mistake of thinking that being chosen by the Creator is like
getting a promotion, let’s now forget just how difficult it was for
God-incarnate to live in this world (cf. Phil. 2.5-11). Being chosen by God always means suffering and
humble service; indeed, it often beings being humbled by suffering so as
to be made useful for God’s purposes.
Chosen
to suffer
As the late spiritual writer Brendan
Manning said of a late American singer-songwriter:
“Jesus of Nazareth ruined Rich
Mullin’s life. And out of the ruins
he recreated a ragamuffin of startling originality; no human being who has
crossed my path even remotely resembles him”.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a wo/man to follow him, he bids them
come and die”. As Jesus said to
Ananias of Damascus about Saul of Tarsus: “I will show him how much he must
suffer for the sake of my name” (Ac. 9.16).
As Paul, once he had changed his name, said: “I regard everything as
loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his
sake I have suffered the loss of all things…” (Phil. 3.8). As Paul said elsewhere: “I have been
crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live,
but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”
(Gal. 2.19-20).
In his book entitled The Strangest Way,
American theologian Robert Barron
shares the anecdote of a memorable exchange that a young Thomas Merton had with
a friend, early on in his life as a Christian, which led the young convert to
conclude that his Christian faith was not about getting his ideas straight, but
rather a matter of getting his life straight.
The goal of the Christian life is to become a saint, to walk the way
of Jesus.[1]
It’s
not about us
To that end,
Barron presents his readers with three paths to holiness, as well as a set of
practices that embody each path and shape the desires of the pilgrim on the
way.
The first path is “finding the center”,
i.e. to encounter the love of God, the love of the One who is the very act of
being itself, the center of all reality.
One of the spiritual practices that demonstrates that one has found the
center is fasting. Fasting, the
temporary refusal to feed the many relatively superficial human needs, is
designed to identify and feed the truest human hunger, the need for God.[2]
The second path is “knowing you’re a
sinner”. Barron insists that those who
can freely acknowledge their sins are participating in the center, i.e. they
are on the path to sainthood. Those with
the humility to confess their sin and turn back (repent) to the Center who is
more than willing to forgive are positioned to grow in godliness.[3]
The third path is “realizing your life is
not about you”. Barron encourages his
readers to embrace the “theo-drama” of which their lives are a part. It is by living in light of one’s God-given
purpose – itself a part of the divine plan, a plan that is not particularly
concerned with one’s private “happiness” – that one can experience true joy and
freedom.[4] Barron concludes by putting his readers at
the foot of the cross, the same “place” where he begins his work. As Jesus dies on Calvary, we witness the love
of the triune God in action, (literally) embodied. Jesus invites us to participate in that
divine and dangerous love, detaching ourselves from the chains of self. True “detachment” was experienced by him who
was himself attached to the cross, in utter abandonment to the Father’s
will. This is the mystery of life as
Jesus has revealed it to us – “whoever loses his life…will save it”.[5]
It's
all about God
As often happens when we bring our
questions to the Bible, we discover that our questions aren’t exactly the right
ones. This is often simply because our
questions reflect our concerns (and our sense of self-importance), while God’s
concerns are often quite different. In
the beginning of the book of Acts, the resurrected Jesus is with the
apostles outside of Jerusalem, and the disciples ask him one of those
questions:
Like good,
faithful Jews, the apostles are eager to know if Jesus will finally do what
they think the Messiah is supposed to do – liberate Israel from her enemies and
make her the dominant nation on the world stage. Isn’t that what Psalm 2 was all about? The nations may rage, but Yahweh’s anointed
king will rule them with a rod of iron from his throne on Mt. Zion. So, the apostles ask, has the time now come
to put this program into practice? Both
the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus had taken the disciples
completely by surprise – they could never have imagined that the Messiah would
suffer and die, let alone rise from death as an advance sign of the world to
come. What the disciples would eventually
come to understand was that Jesus’ death on the cross had been precisely his
enthronement as Israel’s anointed king – the King of the Jews – and the launch
of the kingdom of God (cf. Ac. 1.3). Jesus
had tried – unsuccessfully – to explain to his apostles that the kingdom
of the Creator functioned very differently from those of the world (cf. Mk.
10.32-45).
The kingdom of David
In a sense, the disciples make the right
mistake. After all, the Old Testament is
full of God’s promises to establish the kingdom of David and his descendants,
including the Messiah himself. In the
beginning of Luke’s Gospel, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she
had been chosen to be the mother of the Messiah, the long-awaited king of
Israel, he had told her something absolutely fascinating:
“…you will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He…will
be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob
forever, and of his
kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke
1.31-33)
Gabriel tells Mary that her son will receive “the throne of David” and
that “his kingdom will last forever”.
This is indeed what God had promised David – God had told him that one
of his descendants would always sit on his throne (cf. 2 Sam. 7.13-14). So, Jesus is the promised descendant of David
who will reign over Israel forever.
Jesus is a king who will rule over an eternal kingdom. The Bible’s story of salvation is a story
about the Creator God calling Abraham to be the ancestor of a nation – Israel –
which will have a special destiny to be “the people of God” in the midst of all
the other nations of the earth (cf. Gn. 12.1-3; Ex. 19.5-6; Dt. 7.7-11).
God’s anointed king
Once Israel established a
monarchy, a new twist was introduced into the story. To take one example among many, in Psalm 2,
God tells the king of Israel that he has been chosen to rule, not only over the
people of God, but also over all
the nations of the world:
“I have set my king on
Zion, my holy hill.”
I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He
said to me,
“You are
my son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make
the nations your heritage
and the ends of the earth your possession.” (Psalm 2.6-8)
So, according to the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), the king of
the descendants of Abraham is destined to rule over the entire world. The king of Israel is destined to reign over the kingdom of God, which will include all the nations of the
earth. Ultimately, according to many
Psalms, God was king of both Israel and the world (e.g. Pss.
47, 90-96). God’s “anointed one”, the
king of Israel, was called to rule as God’s representative on earth (cf. Ps.
2.7-8). Gabriel tells Mary that her son
Jesus will be the long-awaited king who will rule over Israel and the
nations. This is the point of the story that Luke is telling in his two-volume work (Luke – Acts). Luke is telling the story of how God’s
promises to Abraham and David are fulfilled through Jesus and his
apostles. In his Gospel, Luke shows us how Jesus is the king of Israel (the Messiah, the Son
of God); in the sequel, The
Acts of the Apostles, Luke
shows us how the kingdom of God spreads from Jersualem “to the ends of the
earth” as the witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection proclaim him as Messiah and Lord
(cf. Ac. 1.3, 8; 2.36).
The
kingdom of God. This is another interesting phrase, and once
again, it has often been misunderstood.
It is common for Christians to read the Gospels, to read of Jesus
proclaiming “the kingdom of God/heaven” (e.g. Lk. 4.43) and to think that he
was talking about where
Christians go after they die. This is a mistake. As we have seen in the passages from the Old
Testament that we have considered, the “kingdom of God” was the Creator’s way of reclaiming
authority over the world he had made. In response to human
rebellion, and against all the kingdoms of the world (which are expressions of
human pride and autonomy), God decided to establish his rule, his kingdom. Where? In
the midst of the world he had made! As we often pray: “Let your kingdom come…on earth as in heaven…” (cf. Mt. 6.9-10).
This should be our deepest desire – that’s God’s authority should become
a reality in the world. This is the world’s only hope. If you are
in the habit of watching the news, you are well aware of how the world is presently
being ruled – by violent and greedy people who are preoccupied with expanding
their own power, their own “kingdoms”. The
answer to all this is for God to rule the world.
But how? How has the Creator
chosen to reign over his world, and thus save it? What is his strategy? Well, as we have seen, the kingdom-plan began
with Abraham, it continued with David, and its fulfillment was promised to a
teen-aged Galilean girl who was told that she would give birth to the Messiah,
the king of Israel who would reign forever.
We’re part of the story
So, Acts chapter 1 is
telling us that the risen Jesus is teaching the disciples about the kingdom of
God (cf. Ac. 1.3) – which is the kingdom of the Davidic king. Jesus helps them realize just how vast the
kingdom of God is – it is not limited to the nation of Israel, to one strip of
territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea; rather, the kingdom
of God – as Psalm 2 had promised – is to extend “to the ends of the earth”. Not only does Jesus clarify the scope of the
kingdom, he also informs the shocked disciples that the kingdom of God will spread
outwards from Jerusalem – through
their witness to his resurrection! The disciples, descendants of Abraham and
members of the people of God that they are, are not merely recipients and beneficiaries
of the kingdom; rather, they are the
very means by which the kingdom will become a reality in the world. Instead of
acquiring “power” because they are the friends of the Messiah, the apostles
find themselves to be servants of the gospel, tasked with an impossible mission,
but told to wait until they receive what God had promised, i.e. the true power of the Holy Spirit. The
apostles, who represent the people of God – that’s why there was 12 of them,
find themselves sent out into a dangerous and often hostile world, armed only
with the promise of the Spirit.
Chosen…for others
The disciples had to learn
the lesson that Israel had consistently failed to learn ever since the call of
Abraham. The people of God were chosen
to belong to the Creator for one very specific reason – to be God’s instrument of salvation
in the world. Israel had never existed for herself. As a nation, Israel had been chosen to be a “light”
to the world and to be the “salt of the earth” (cf. Mt. 5.13-16). Israel had been called to be the servant nation. She had
not been chosen to simply enjoy being God’s favourite; rather, the people of
God had been chosen to draw all nations to the Center, to the Source, to Yahweh,
the Creator and Redeemer of all things.
A
divine revolution
Make no mistake, when the risen Jesus is shown
to be talking with the apostles on the Mount of Olives about the kingdom
of God and about power, we can be sure that this discussion is not a
mere “pious chat”, a pleasant hillside “Bible study” – no, this is a strategic
briefing concerning the future and fate of the people of God as well as all
the nations of the world. That’s
because the people of God exist as the Creator’s agent of salvation, a
salvation whose target is the whole earth.
Remember what God said to Abraham: “I will bless you and make you the
father of a great nation…in you all the nations of the earth will be
blessed” (cf. Gn. 12.1-3). It’s there
from the beginning – the people of God, as well as all the nations of the world
are the target of God’s saving purposes.
It is no different in Acts chapter 1, as the risen Jesus prepares
to send the “witnesses” to his resurrection to “the ends of the earth” (Ac.
1.8). Indeed, the book of Acts
comes to an “end” with Paul under house arrest in Rome, speaking freely
of the kingdom of God to all who will listen (cf. Ac. 28.30-31). There can be no doubt that Luke has
intentionally book-ended his narrative with explicit mentions of the kingdom of
God, because that is precisely what the book of Acts is all about – how
the kingdom of God began to be established in the world, the world that
had always been run and ruled by the kingdoms of man.
If the apostles had to be taught that the people
of God exist for the good of the rest of the world, we – as the people of God
in this place and at this time – also have to learn this lesson. The only reason we exist is for the good
of the wider community all around us.
If we belong to the God whose Word became flesh (cf. Jn. 1.14), we
are on a mission. Our risen Lord is
sending us out of the safe confines of our church into the dangerous and
hurting world with good news – good news for the poor, for the lonely, for the
despairing, for the self-satisfied, for the broken, for the powerful, for everyone. The gospel we are called to proclaim and
embody is that Jesus is Lord, and therefore, true joy (and “power”!) can
be experienced by humbly loving God and humbly serving each other. This is the revolutionary message we are
called to spread “to the ends of the earth”, or perhaps, simply to the end of
the street. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment