Easter and the Church

Easter and The Church
Acts 4:23-37

When I was in my 20s, there was a popular book. It was called, “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.” It was a book about prayer. Like “The Purpose-Driven Life,” this book was very popular. The pastor himself didn’t have a degree in Bible or theology. He claimed to base his ministry on prayer. He said that God built this church. The church was located in New York City. And he claimed that this ministry grew and grew because the people of the church prayed.
As many people ran to the bookstore to buy this book, I stayed home. When something is popular I usually go in a different way than everyone else. But I knew people who had read this book. One of these people was my pastor. She said that this book made her think about her own prayer time. She described this as a difficult experience. I thought to myself, “why would someone read a book that makes one’s life more difficult?” She thought this was a good thing. I’m sure this made her look at her prayer time differently. But I wasn’t convinced.
Around that time, I went to a youth conference. One of the workshops I went to was about this book. The person who led the workshop was also a believer in the book. He talked some about this book. Then he gave us an opportunity to experience prayertime during that workshop. After the prayertime was over with, he asked us to talk about our experience. I remember there was one girl who was deaf. She could not hear anything but during that prayertime she heard some kind of noise. She took this to be a message from God. She thought God was saying, “If you meet me like this more often, I will do great things.”
Even after this experience, I still wasn’t convinced. If God wanted to do something really great, why didn’t God just restore her hearing? It is a common thing for us to try to go back to the good ol’ days. Maybe for some of us, the good ol’ days were when we were in high school. If we are married now, maybe the good ol’ days are when we were single. If we are single, maybe we’re still looking for the good ol’ days.
Many people have read Acts with a desire to get back to the good ol’ days. They think that the church used to be perfect. If we could only be like the early church was, that would really be something. Then we could really do church. That is what this book was about. As with many popular Christian books that time came and went. The writer said that if people started praying there could be a revival. If there was one, I don’t think it happened in my church.
For some reason, I have always struggled with prayer times like these. It was like a speech class. I felt like my prayer had to go a certain way. Since I was preparing to be a minister, I thought that I had to say everything just right. I hear that same concern when I hear people ask how to pray in English. I wonder if we miss the point with prayer. Or if at least the writer of the book missed something.
This is not the first chapter in Acts. This is the fourth chapter. Much has happened here. Jesus has spent time with the disciples in his resurrected body. Jesus has told the disciples to tell the good news of Jesus dying, being buried and being raised from the dead. The disciples did what Jesus said and they got arrested.
Now I don’t know about you but I think I’d have a word or two for Jesus. “Now just a minute. I’m okay with telling people about you. But what is the point of getting arrested for obeying you.” I guess the apostles came to expect this after following a guy who got in trouble a lot. After they had been set free, they went to the church.
There is something interesting about this church that the apostles were leading. Acts 4 tells us that they went to their friends. It doesn’t tell us they went to their business partners. It doesn’t tell us that they went to the board meeting. It tells us they went to their friends. The people of this group within the Jewish faith were so close that they were friends.
For me, this word is sacred. I don’t call just anyone my friend. I have different levels of relationships. First, there are acquaintances. This is someone that I meet. I might even have lunch with them at work. But these are not quite my friends. Then there are casual friends. These are people I might have dinner with but there are some things I still don’t talk to them about. Then there are friends. These are people I’m comfortable with whom I don’t have to hang out with. I choose to hang out with them. Then there are close friends. These are the people that I tell everything to. These are the people that I call when I am depressed, when I want to talk to someone without worrying what they might think. When I read Acts, I hear the writer saying that the people of this Church that started at Pentecost were close friends. And that’s probably why the Apostles went to them first.
Now why would someone want to arrest Jesus’ apostles? Surely these were good people. Surely they didn’t make people too excited. All they were doing was being witnesses. They were telling people what they saw. But of course part of what they saw was Jewish religious leaders pushing for Jesus to be killed. And if somebody was wrong, it was probably those religious leaders. Or maybe it was the Jewish people of Israel who agreed to have Jesus crucified. I think I would arrest somebody if it looked like I had killed the Son of God.
After these apostles were set free from jail, they went back to their friends. And THEN they prayed to God in one accord. I can’t help but think that all the craze about praying is sometimes misinformed. In this story, prayer is a response to what God is doing and a request for God to continue acting. It is not enough to pray in and of itself. These followers of Jesus were praising God. They called God sovereign. This means they recognized that God is the one who creates. They didn’t give God this title often. It was a special occasion. And while they were at it, they asked God to continue to use the apostles. They wanted the disciples to speak with boldness. This means they wanted people to believe the apostles’ story. They needed to believe themselves that the story they were telling was indeed true.
And now comes the moment we’ve all been waiting, the shaking of that place. All we are left to here is imagination. We don’t know what the people said. We don’t know whether they prayed for this sort of thing to happen. It would seem unlikely that they asked God to make that place shake. And yet that is sometimes how we rate the effectiveness of a prayer meeting. We sometimes try to repeat this kind of a scenario because then we know that God is involved. And yet, we are told time and time again that if we want to experience salvation with God, we must trust God. That means there is an element of uncertainty.
I should probably apologize to you for choosing such a long passage to read from this morning. I’m sorry. I could have chosen Acts 4:23-31. Or I could have chosen Acts 4:32-37. If I chose Acts 4:23-31, I worried that we might think praying is enough. And if I chose Acts 4:31-37 we might think that serving is enough. Acts 4:31-37 is about service. It would be easy for me to go this direction. Where is God involved in the world? I think it must be with poor people. It must be in helping those who can’t help themselves. But if God is relational, surely prayer is important too. This is where I struggle. It’s difficult for me to pray to a God that I can’t see or hear or understand. So I thought this sermon would speak to me if I included both parts. And maybe by including both parts it will speak to you, too.
The text tells us that there was great grace upon the apostles. We often think of grace as this forgiveness that God gives us. We talk about God’s gracing overlooking our sins. But grace is much more than this. It also refers to God giving us power. And that is what God did for the apostles.
The disciples were testifying to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are still celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the fourth week after Easter. It was a new day after Jesus was raised from the dead. It was originally the apostles’ duty to talk about Jesus being raised from the dead. And now it is our turn. How do we talk about Jesus being raised from the dead?
On Easter Sunday I went to the Seoul Anglican Cathedral, 서울대성당. The priest gave a decent sermon. First he preached in English and then he preaced in Korean. I was impressed since he is a native English speaker. I was convinced that he researched the passage well. But I was also disappointed that he didn’t talk about what difference the resurrection makes today.
The resurrection was central to the message of the apostles. Yes, they talked about Jesus’ life. Yes, they talked about Jesus dying on the cross. Yes, they talked about Jesus being buried. But the good news is that Jesus was raised from the dead. And the good news that carries from the good news is that life can be different. Life can be better.
So what difference does the resurrection of Jesus make to 나사렛대학교회? Why are we here? What difference does the resurrection make to this English service? Why do we come here every week at 9am? We could go to the 11:00 service and even get to sleep in. Is there a reason? Is it so we can improve our English? Is it to extend an invitation to people who don’t go to any church? Is it to connect with the students of this university? Is it to minister to people in the community where this church is located? Are we doing that?
There is an important detail that I failed to mention. It was the result of the prayer meeting in the room that shook. The people asked God to give the apostles authority. How did God do this? God filled them with the Holy Spirit. This wasn’t the first time the apostles experienced the Holy Spirit. To say this was the first time they received the Holy Spirit would be misleading. This was a fresh infilling of God’s Spirit. Now why would God do this if God only wanted those Christians to pray? Lots of people pray. They don’t need the Holy Spirit to do that. But in order to fulfill God’s call for us, we need to experience God’s power that comes through the Holy Spirit.
When a church does what the apostles and the early Christians did, we say, “the Church is being The Church”. Unfortunately, many times this is not the case. Many times people don’t extend love to other people. I wish I could simply ask whether that is the case at this church. But I’m afraid it is the case. There is a lack of community here. People come here because they have to or because their spouse has to. Perhaps there are people who come here for other reasons. But having talked to university students who haven’t experienced that grace at this church, what can we do to change it?
There are lots of ministries where the Church is being The Church. These come in a lot of different forms. One of these is the XXXChurch. This is a ministry that was started to help people who are addicted to pornography. Pastors from this church go to events where there are strippers dancing on stage. Their motto is, “Jesus loves porn stars.” Their goal is not to shut down the companies that produce these materials. Rather, they want to help people addicted to these types of materials to be free.
Yesterday I talked to a friend of mine about what it would be like for the Church to be The Church. He imagined that the Church could be so much more if people were honest. The word used to describe the relationship of the people at church in Acts is “friends”. This takes grace. It’s easier to come, do our thing of going to church and then going home or to the Yawoori or whatever. But to develop relationships with people takes work. Let it start with us, in the English congregation at 나사렛대학교회. Look around for the students. Don’t assume they have enough friends. Look around for the people you don’t know. Think about walking around the neighborhood and helping those who can’t help themselves. I think my friend is right about the Church. If we realize the resurrection of Jesus in our own lives, we could make our lives better and everyone else's.