Year C. The Nativity of St. John The Baptist June 24th, 2001
Acts13: 22-26
Title : “Continuity between the life of Jesus and the lives of his disciples conforms to the pattern of the life of Christ like a mirror and an echo.”
This is an excerpt from Paul’s sermon, spanning 13: 16-41, his first and last sermon to Jews recorded in Acts, given at Antioch “of Pisidia.” The city, a civil and military center, is actually in the province of Phrygia, near Pisidia; hence, the name “Antioch towards Pisidia” or, more correctly “Pisidian Antioch.” Seleucus I founded several cities and named them after his father Antiochus. Since there was another Antioch in Phrygia on the Maenander River, this one was known as Pisidian Antioch. Phrygia had belonged to the kingdom of Galatia and was incorporated into the Roman province of Galatia by Augustus in 25BC. It was Paul’s practice to go first to the major cities and towns of an area, preach first to any Jews there, and after rejection by them, turn to the Gentiles. The central location of these cities and towns made it easier to radiate out from them into the smaller habitations.
Paul’s sermon takes place in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch. Like Jesus, it was his normal practice to go to synagogue on the Sabbath. Throughout Acts, the author, the same person who wrote Luke, likes to show how the disciples of Jesus relive the experiences of Jesus, just as Jesus foretold they would. He describes them in terms of prophetic imagery. For instance, he has trial of Stephen echo the trial of Jesus, Stephen’s last words echo those of Jesus, and Peter’s escape from prison echo Jesus’ resurrection. Here the author has Luke 4: 1-40 as his background to show that what happened to Paul here also happened to Jesus earlier. In this way he shows that Jesus’ life was “prophetic” of the life of his followers.
Like Jesus, who was “filled with the Holy Spirit,” Luke 4: 1, after being baptized, so also Paul was commissioned by the Spirit in Antioch. Like Jesus, who went into the wilderness and confronted the demonic powers and bested them, so also Paul confronts and bests the demonic powers presented by the magician Bar-Jesus. Like Jesus, who preached his inaugural sermon to his countrymen in a synagogue on the Sabbath after being asked by the leader to do so, so Paul preaches his inaugural sermon after being asked and after readings from the Law and the Prophets. Like Jesus he showed how the Scripture was fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus. Like Jesus, who was initially favorably received, Paul was so received at first, but later rejected and attempts were made on his life. Like Jesus in Luke 4: 30, Paul left that place unharmed, if unpopular, to preach elsewhere. Luke obviously wants to show the continuity between what was prophesied about Jesus and what Jesus prophesied about his followers, all of it come true.
If there is continuity between the life of Jesus and the lives of his disciples, there is also continuity between their preaching. Paul’s sermon looks like both the sermons of Peter, that is, Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2: 14-36, and the speech of Stephen in Acts7. Like them he addresses his fellow Jews, along with some God-fearing Gentiles, that is, those philosophically and religiously sympathetic but not ready or willing to be circumcised or totally commit to observance of the Mosaic law. Like them he plunges straight into a survey of Jewish history in order to show that Israel was chosen by God, and why he preaches to Jews first, giving them a chance to repent, before going to the Gentiles, and provided them with both land and kings, especially David, the up-till-now ideal king, culminating in the long awaited and prophesied savior king, Jesus. He is the one whom God promised and delivered, who would deliver his people from their sins.
In verse twenty-two, God raised up David as their king: The verb chosen to describe David’s acceptance by God is the same verb used to describe the resurrection of Jesus, Greek egeiro. Luke loves to use prophetic imagery so that his readers connect the present, past and future by means of the many connotations his words suggest and the swirl of images they elicit.
I have found David…: True to Lucan style this citation is a mixture of Psalm 88: 21, “I have found David my servant,” and 1Samaul 13: 14, “the Lord seeks a man after his own heart.” He will carry out my every wish: This is yet another biblical reference combined into this mélange of otherwise disparate texts. This one is from Isaiah 44: 28 and originally referred to Cyrus, the Persian king, not, earlier, David, the Jewish king. In one epithet either Luke or the tradition on which he depended has pulled together three Septuagint texts, not unlike the way Jesus pulled together all the disparate prophecies concerning himself.
In verse wenty-three, From this man’s descendants: The reference is, of course, from the promise made to David in 2 Samuel 7: 12 that God will “raise up” only here the verb in Greek is anasteso, yet another verb that the New Testament uses to refer to the resurrection, your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom forever. For Luke this “raising up” refers to Jesus’ resurrection. When the sovereignty of the house of David suffered the Babylonian exile, it came to be recognized that the promises made to David would be fulfilled and indeed surpassed in a ruler of David’s line whom God would raise up. As the post-exilic centuries passed, long after the extinction of the Davidic dynasty, and especially after the Roman extinction of the national independence enjoyed briefly under the Hasmoneans, the longing for the messianic deliverer became more intense than ever.
In verse twenty-four, John heralded his coming: Luke is careful to clearly distinguish John’s ministry from that of Jesus. John’s baptism of repentance paved the way for the public appearance of Jesus, as John himself made clear. Luke implies that Samuel’s role in preparing for David is echoed in John’s role in preparing for Jesus, David’s son.
In verse twenty-five, John was completing his course: “Course” translates the Greek dromos, which refers first to the athletic competition and then to the place where it is held. It easily adapts itself to being a metaphor for any effort. Here John is seen as ending the era of “the law and the Prophets” and specifically cited for that reason, see Luke 16: 16.
What do you suppose that I am? I am not he: When people wondered if John himself might be the Messiah, he emphatically denied it. So far did he reckon himself beneath the dignity, he declared himself unfit to even untie his sandal straps. This summary of John’s ministry combines features from the Synoptics, the baptism of repentance and the imminent coming of the one greater and stronger than John, with features peculiar to the gospel according to John, especially John’s denial that he was the Messiah.
In verse twenty-six, to us this word of salvation has been sent: Paul encourages his listeners not to make the same mistake as did those Jews in their capital city, Jerusalem, who rejected Jesus. They showed their ignorance of the true meaning of the messianic prophecies and failed to recognize Jesus for who he really was, some even preferring John to Jesus. In their unjust judgment upon him they unwittingly fulfilled those prophecies that foretold how he must suffer and die. Paul appeals to his listeners to be open to the Old Testament prophecies they have been reading in their synagogue for centuries now, not to mistake John as the Messiah, and accept Jesus for who he is, namely, their deliverer.
There are two apt metaphors or analogies that describe our imitation of God’s behavior. One is the mirror; the other is the echo. The mirror is more apt to describing how we reflect the light of God. We have no light of our own, like a mirror. We reflect nothing without light. The light we reflect is God. We are merely the mirror through which he reveals himself to both others and us. In speaking of John the Baptist, John 1: 8 says, “He was not the light but came to testify to the light.” This is true of all followers of Christ. It is interesting that the open cup on top of a candle is called a “followers” because it “follows” the candle down as it burns and enables it to not be extinguished by the melted wax and prevents the wax from burning too quickly. Of course, we are NOT like mirrors in that we do not just stand still, like an inanimate object. Reflecting the light involves action, movement, life. Paul uses the analogy for the mirror to refer to the imperfect way we see the light of God. Mirrors in those days were made of polished metal and so reflected imperfectly. Paul says that for now we see dimly as in a mirror. We never see God clearly in this world, nor do we reflect him perfectly. Only Jesus, who is the light, does that. John never forgot or would never let anyone else forget that he was not the light; a lamp, yet, but not the light. When emphasizing God as light the metaphor and analogy of the mirror is an apt one. Our behavior, done in and by the light who is God, reflects God’s behavior, reveals God’s presence and character, and attracts others to that light. That is how those who do not yet know God come to be introduced to him.
The analogy of the echo serves to emphasize the speech of God, his word, his interpretation of reality. The ancient rabbis liked to call the written word of God the “daughter of the voice of God in order to distinguish it from God’s actual voice. The ‘daughter of the voice” is what the echo is. If we speak or shout into a cavern or on a mountain what we hear is not the actual voice but an echo of it, the “daughter” of the voice. If John’s gospel emphasized the Baptist as testifying to the light, the Synoptics emphasized the Baptist as a “voice crying in the desert. In other words, they thought of him as an echo of God’s voice, as the “daughter” of the voice of God, not as the actual voice. John himself made that clear. As an echo reverberates through the empty, desert, space it gets weaker and weaker and grows dimmer and dimmer and can become unintelligible. That is why we must constantly return to the source, who is Christ. That is why Christ gave us himself for all time in the form of his Spirit. The Spirit renews the voice and as such “renews the race of the earth.” Otherwise what happened to the Old Testament can happen to the New Testament. The rabbis repeated the same misinterpretation of the voice of God so many times that it became mistaken for the actual voice and error was passed on as truth. From time to time God would raise up prophets to straighten out the misunderstanding, but to little or no avail. It is to John’s eternal credit that he never confused himself with the light itself. He is a model for us to avoid the same mistake, as Paul is encouraging his listeners in this reading.
The author of Acts is enchanted with the truth of “echoing.” He sees all the lives of the disciples of Christ “echoing” the life of Christ in their own lives. He is not saying that these parallels are exact, certainly not in their details. He is saying there is enough similarity between what happens to the disciples and what happened to Jesus that, for those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, the pattern of the lives of the disciples conforms to the pattern of the life of Christ like a mirror and an echo. Indeed, the details- the times, places, characters, venues, etc.- are different enough that one might easily miss them. Hence, he wrote them down in such a way that when we read them thoughtfully, carefully and prayerfully, the Holy Spirit reveals to us then and there the similarity between what happened back then and what is happening now. It is then that the “daughter of the voice,” the written word, comes alive and we experience the voice of God himself. It is not a voice that has to make noise or create wind, though that is the way it is described at Pentecost, but a voice that informs and enlightens, a voice that reassures us of the presence of more than a voice, of the author of the voice, the word, and the source of the light. That experience is so neat, so full of meaning and mystery, that we want it to reverberate, to echo, throughout our lives, so we return to the “mountain” and to the “desert,” analogies themselves, as often as we can. Amen.
