Isaiah 43:1-12, 1 John 1:1-4, Luke 24:36-49
A recipe for sainthood
The Apostles of Christ pose a puzzle for us, one that many do not solve very well. On one hand, we have scenes throughout the gospels similar to the one in the gospel lesson for today: the Apostles full of fear, full of unbelief. They have not believed Jesus when he told him he was going to be crucified and then rise from the dead. When it actually happens, they do not believe the report of those who had seen Jesus after his resurrection. Indeed, Luke’s gospel which we have just heard follows Luke’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the disciples on the Emmaus road. And, we have touched on that encounter from time to time recently. They, too, did not understand, and Jesus had to go back over all the things in the Old Testament concerning himself.
The verses just before today’s gospel reads like this: 33So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34saying, ‘The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ 35And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.”
And then we get the first words of today’s gospel: “Now as they said these things, Jesus appeared in their midst and said, ‘Peace be to you all’ ” In other words, just when the disciples on the Emmaus road are reporting the good news to the Eleven, Jesus appears in the midst of all of them.
And, what? “37But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.”
On the other hand, not much further into Luke’s account, which we find in the Book of Acts, the disciples are very different. They are no longer afraid. They are no longer hiding for fear of the Jews. They are no longer disbelieving. Their boldness, their confidence, is everywhere obvious and abundant. Why the difference? Many have said that it was the bare fact of the resurrection itself which made the difference. But, clearly that is not the case. For in today’s gospel they disciples have heard of the resurrection twice – from the women at the tomb, and now from these disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Even when Jesus appears in their midst, they are still they are afraid and disbelieving.
Indeed, the Apostles underwent a fabulous change, and I think Luke’s account here shows us how it came about. I’ve heard some preachers and read some teachers that take a holier than thou kind of attitude toward the disciples, as if they themselves would never have been so spiritually dense. That is exactly the analysis of the puzzle which we MUST reject. There are very good reasons for the disciples’ change of heart, and if we understand these reasons rightly, we will avoid that kind of ignorant arrogance.
So, what changed their mind? Three things.
First, of all, it was their first-hand experience of the resurrected Lord Jesus. You see, it was more than just seeing. They DID see, and they were still terrified. So, what does Jesus do? He takes the steps necessary to show them that he is no ghost. “You see?” he said. A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. Handle Me and see” And, to make the point even further, he asks them for something to eat, and when they produced something, he eats it in front of them. Again, spirits do not bite the food you and I bite. Ghosts do not chew the food you and I chew. Jesus bites and chews and swallows. He is as real as the disciples, and whatever his “realness” is like, it is as real as a piece of fish or a chunk of honeycomb.
This up close and personal encounter with the Lord Jesus seems to have been critical for what Jesus was later to with the Apostles. For, when Jesus commissioned Saul of Tarsus to be an Apostle, just like all the rest, he made a personal appearance to him, and taught him directly as he had earlier taught the Eleven. Paul insists that this is one of the credentials which he has as an Apostle, when he writes to the Corinthians, “Am I not an apostle? … Have I not seen the Lord Jesus?” (1 Cor. 9:1) When he opens his letter to the Galatians, Paul does it this way: “1 Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead), …”
It was not, evidently, enough that the Apostles merely see Jesus. To become what they soon became – men of truly reckless courage and confidence – they needed to do more than merely see the resurrected Jesus. They had to have a fresh, concrete, objective, and sustained encounter with him, when he ate with them, conversed with them, and taught them.
And, that is the second thing which the Apostles needed to become what they soon became. They needed to understand the Scriptures which, heretofore, they still had not understood. Luke tells us that Jesus said to them, “ ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ 45And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”
And then Jesus said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 47and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48And you are witnesses of these things.”
I can remember when I was in seminary I had courses of instruction called hermeneutics. That’s an academic term for “how to understand something,” and in a hermeneutics course you will study a variety of rules for how to rightly read a text, in particular a Biblical text. There was one point of view which we encountered that said something like this: Scripture cannot mean something which the original audience cannot have understood it to mean. This is, of course, hogwash, for the Prophets of the Old Testament never understood their own prophecies about the coming Messiah. What was necessary was for the Old Testament Scriptures to be read, and interpreted, and understood, and applied with respect to what no one understood until Jesus came, fulfilled his mission from the Father, and rose from the dead.
This is what Jesus was doing with the disciples between the time he first encountered them and the time when he ascended into Heaven. He was teaching them again how to read the Scriptures.
Do you know why the New Testament is so much shorter than the Old Testament? It is shorter because there is not very much new in it! What you do find in abundance in the New Testament is the right interpretation of the Old Testament. This is what Paul spends most of his time doing. And Peter, and John, and James. This is what occupies the entirety of the book of Hebrews – an exposition as to what the Old Testament was all about. And, this, evidently, is a key factor in transforming the hearts of the Apostles. Their understanding needed to be clarified, and it was a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Himself, in the flesh, which accomplished this for them.
So, they needed a living, up close and personal encounter with the Lord, and they needed to understand the Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures, in terms of the risen Lord. The final thing they needed was a supernatural empowerment by the Holy Spirit.
Luke writes: “49Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
Now, the empowerment of believers by God’s spirit is nothing new – Old Testament saints were empowered by God’s spirit. Indeed, in John’s account of this same meeting, John records that Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” However, there was still something for which Jesus instructed his disciples to wait for – to tarry in Jerusalem until, as he said, “you are endued with power from on high.”
What Jesus was referring to, of course, occurred on the day of Pentecost 50 days after the resurrection. Jesus had by that time ascended into heaven, and when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, the promise which Jesus mentioned was fulfilled – a work of the Holy Spirit occurred which created for the first time what we know as the Church – the body of Christ, those who are by the Holy Spirit united with one another and united with Jesus to create the Church.
From that point – from the day of Pentecost – the disciples were never the same again. They had a personal experience of the resurrected Christ. Their understanding of the Scriptures – and that means, in context, the Old Testament Scriptures! – their understanding of the Scriptures is now clear and focused on the risen Lord Jesus. And, they were newly empowered by the Holy Spirit and constituted one body with Him and all those whom the Spirit placed in the Body of Christ, to fulfill the mission which he gave first to the Apostles, and through the Apostles to the Church itself. The Apostles were never the same again.
Do we have the these things? I submit to you that we do. First of all, now that two millennia have passed since the events in today’s gospel, the Church is littered with saints whose testimony for the gospel is every bit as bright, as powerful, as clear, and as recklessly fearless as those original Apostles. But, though we have these things, we have them in a way that puts us into position of dependence on the Apostles of Christ.
Take the up close and personal resurrected Jesus, for example. We have that in two ways, both of them dependent on the Apostles. We have it in the Eucharist, when this bread and this wine is the closest that any of us will ever come to a physical encounter with Christ until he returns to the earth or until we are gathered by death to meet him face to face. But, even this personal encounter with Christ, one which we will experience shortly, comes to us as we submit ourselves to the teaching of the Apostles. It is by their ministry, their teaching, their faithfulness to obey the Lord – to teach the nations all things whatsoever Jesus commanded them – THAT is how we have TODAY a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus.
Indeed, that is the whole point of how the Apostle John opens his letter, which we heard read earlier. Remember John’s words? “1 That which was from the beginning, which WE have heard …” I never heard with my ears the words that Jesus spoke. But John did! The Apostles did.
“… that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon …” I have never seen Jesus in his human form. My eyes have never gazed on his face. But, the Apostles looked on him.
John insists that “ … our hands have handled, … the Word of life … ” Jesus said to them, See, touch me, handle me …” and so the Apostles did. But I never did. You never did. Do we lack, then, what the Apostles had? No, says John, for we have it too. But, we have it only insofar as we receive it from those to whom Christ gave it – the Apostles. And so John writes, … “3 …that which we have seen and heard WE declare to YOU, …” That’s you and me – they Apostles’ experience of the Lord comes to us by their declaration of that experience in the Scriptures which they have left. And, they wrote those Scriptures for a specific purpose which John next describes:
“ … that YOU also may have fellowship with US; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”
We have what the Apostles had, the things which transformed them from cringing cowards into men who were bold as lions. Through them, we have their personal experience of the Lord Jesus. Through them, we have a right understanding of the Scriptures – not only the Scriptures which the Apostles left to us, but the Old Testament. The Apostles give to us in the New Testament the keys to understand the Old. And, we are one body with the Apostles because of God’s spirit who unites us with them, and unites all of us with Christ into the Church which is His body, Christ himself being its head.
This is a recipe for saints. It turned those fearful Apostles into saints, and it is a recipe for sainthood for century after century, whether the saints are well known, or whether they remain hidden in history until the revelation of Jesus Christ upon his return in glory.
The British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge was a Marxist before he found Christ. During the Cold War he traveled to Russia to write a story about the Communist party and the decline of religion in that atheistic regime. After conducing a series of interviews with officials in the Kremlin, he attended a Russian Orthodox Easter service. The church was packed. At the close of the service the priest announced, “Christ is risen”, and the people shouted back, “He is risen indeed!” Muggeridge looked into their faces and instantly realized that they were right and that Stalin was wrong. He said it was the reality of their joy that tipped the scales of his soul toward Christ. The reality of Christian joy is compelling!
On the original first Sunday after Easter, the Apostle Thomas got his opportunity to personally verify that Jesus was risen from the dead. And, when he had confessed his faith, Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
On this Two Thousand and Fifth Sunday after Easter, God grant that what turned the Apostles into saints will work in our souls to the same effect. May we receive the witness and testimony of the Apostles to Jesus mighty resurrection, may we embrace the Apostolic teaching which makes us wise unto salvation. And, may we find ourselves empowered to carry on their mission, empowered by the Spirit who first empowered them, and who yet unites us to them and us all to our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
