The Readings this morning are:
- Acts 9:36–43
- Revelation 7:9–17
- John 10:22–30
How are you hearing God’s Word this morning?
How do you respond to this morning’s readings? How do you hear them?
I ask the question because this is about more than someone coming and preaching – someone with some training and knowledge explaining it all. It’s about becoming people who can feed themselves in God’s word; people who can feed one another in God’s word.
There is life in this word. Even when many followers were struggling with Jesus’ words the Disciples response was – ‘where can we go, you have the words of eternal life’. Jesus himself said that life – real life – was abut more that bread, it was about every word that comes from God.
So, how do you hear these words this morning; what questions do they raise, what words seem key, where do they lead you in other parts of God’s word?
Rather than ‘Preaching’ this morning, I thought that I might try and show my workings as I read these words – and we will see where that takes us.
An Initial Read
So, lets start with prayer. We are not going to get anything out of these words without the Spirit’s help.
[Prayer for Spirit-filled hearing, submission of heart and mind, light and life]
Then let’s start by reading them through and jotting down some first impressions and thoughts
Acts – First Reactions
It starts with Peter going to Joppa, which might make you think about when this happened. It’s always worth looking at the context. This was after Saul’s conversion, when the early church seems to have had a period of relative peace and Peter is going out of Jerusalem, visiting various Christian communities. It is also just before the breakthrough to the Gentiles.
Tabitha-Dorca dies. She is much loved. But why do they not bury her; why do they lay her out and send for Peter? Perhaps, in these early days, they were still working out what ‘eternal life’ means, and the death of a Christian raised questions.
Then Peter comes and calls her back from death. Not only is there much rejoicing among the Christians, but many others believe because of this miracle.
That raises the obvious question, especially as it seems to have had such a positive evangelistic effect; why don’t we see this happening now?
But, lets park that question and read the others.
Revelation – First Reactions
This reading continues from last week. It shows the people whose voices, raised in praise and worship, we heard last week … and it takes a closer look at them.
The first thing we are told is that they are a massive, uncountable, crowd; from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. They are not a small minority, and they are not a special group (western, white or whatever).
But there is something more important that we need to see. We know that, because the angelic guide asks us to look more deeply.
So, we are told about their situation and about their blessing. But it is the phrase that starts the description that leapt out most to me.
They are “the ones coming out of the great tribulation” who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”.
This seems to be the key to who they are, and raises questions for me as I read:
- Are they all Christians, or a special group?
- Are their suffering and their washing in Jesus blood connected?
- Is it significant that ‘they washed’, rather than they were washed?
John – Fist Reactions
Then we come to John’s Gospel and Jesus is being questioned by the Jews (Pharisees or what we don’t know): tell us plainly if you are the Christ.
They have a point; Jesus is often cryptic or indirect. Why does he not just say, I am the Christ? He does, of course, answer them, but in his own terms.
Then, he speaks about the fact that the works he does should be evidence enough, should be persuasive, but something else seems required – being one of his sheep. Usually we might say that believing makes people one of his sheep, but Jesus seems to suggest that it is the other way around; they don’t believe because they are not one of his sheep. What does that mean for us?
And, finally, Jesus makes an awesome statement – I and the Father are One – though he may not have answered their question, there is nothing ambiguous or cryptic about this statement. Their response it to try and stone him to death as a blasphemer … but its not his time and he walks away from the confrontation.
An Initial Read
So, lots of questions. Where do we go from here?
Of Course, Sunday lectionary reading is different fro ordinary reading, where you might just have one passage to think about. On Sundays, my next process might be to think how these three passages relate to one another – particularly in regard to the questions that this initial reading has raised. Sometimes it might be appropriate just to focus on one of the readings – the lectionary is not inspired – but often it is helpful to let scripture talk to scripture.
In my first reading, I came up with three principal questions or challenges:
- From Acts: Why do we jot see people raised from death, like Tabitha?
- From Revelation: Faith is not passive but active; they washed their robes
- From John: Jesus IS … not defined by mankind or our ideas (e.g. what the Christ is)
Where you go from here takes prayer and thought. There is always more that could be pursued than you have time for, but what does God want to say now? Also, there are many things are interesting to know, but knowledge (as Paul says) is not everything; wisdom is more important.
This stage of reading is the hardest. Its so easy to get side-tracked.
For me, I am always drawn to the fundamentals, the roots, of faith and life. So, I ended up pursuing the questions that challenged and shaped these things:
- The part that miracles may play in faith.
- The way that faith calls us to respond actively to God’s grace.
- The way Jesus challenges us to put down our ideas and presumptions and respond to who he really is.
Taking it Further
Miracles and Faith
So, why do we not see miracles like Tabitha’s raising today?
First of all, we do. There are still reports of such things in the world, but not much in our western world. It is easy to put that down to naivety, but that is not always true. There were not many such raisings even in those early days.
Then, although I am reluctant to say that the age of miracle is past (there is no scriptural basis for saying that), perhaps there was something about that particular time:
- The challenge of Death to early Christians – that the death of Christians did not undermine the promise of eternal life. Perhaps God was providing affirmation of our future resurrection, without undermining its future, fulfilment, status.
- The affirmation of Peter and the other Apostles – for all their failures in the past, they carry Jesus’ authority as his personal representatives. Miracles were not unique to the Apostles, but certainly affirmed them.
- The breaking of the Gentile barrier – recognising God’s power at work would be crucial to acceptance of the Gentiles as fellow Christians.
And, if we listen to what Jesus said to his Jewish questioners, perhaps miracles are not as powerful as we might think. They had seen his miracles – his works – but they were not enough to persuade them; they were not faith-making. Like Thomas, we might think that seeing is believing, but Jesus shows that it is not as simple as that.
Perhaps there is something about miracles that takes the focus away from who Jesus is – they can be too superficial. Or, maybe, they do not challenge who we are enough – they are to much about what he can do for us, and not enough about how we need to respond to him … truly washing our lives in his blood.
Though Power Evangelism through miracles (John Wimber’s phrase) still has a place. God’s word tempers our desire for such outward miracles and, perhaps, increases our hunger for the greatest miracle, the gift of new-life and heart-changing faith.
Saving Faith
That takes us to the second question or challenge.
Why is it significant that all these people who we see in Revelation – who are describes as saying ‘Salvation belongs to the Lord’, i.e. it is in and comes from him – why is it significant that they are described as having washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb?
They are also described as having come through the great tribulation. Perhaps there connected, as Paul suggests in Phil 3.10-11
“that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
It could be that this is simply a phrase that means that they have repented and believed, but it sounds more active than that. These are not simply people that have repented and believed. They have lived through extraordinary troubles and if the Robes refer to their life (as I think they do, since that is what clothing often refers to in scripture) they have lived in ways that have pursued righteousness in a world that fought against it.
I think that this passage, this phrase in particular, is a real challenge to our often too shallow understanding of faith. It also would reinforce why Jesus was looking for a faith that was more than a response to miracles. He is looking for a faith that is a response to himself, and who he is – in his deity, holiness ad incarnation.
I Am
Which connects to the third question or challenge.
The Jews wanted Jesus to say ‘I am the Christ’, but the way they understood Christ was not enough for Jesus. Jesus will not be categorised by us and our thoughts. So, he speaks of his Father (God) and says, “I and the Father are One”.
When God presented the animals to Adam, Adam named them. That’s what we do, name things and assign their meaning in that naming. But God won’t let us do that with himself. When Moses asks his name, God simply says “I am”, or “I am who I am”
People constantly stumble over God because they try to understand him in terms of ordinary categories – as we understand ourselves. But you can’t do that. If you could, he would not be God. Things like Jealousy or Wrath, that are bad in people, are different in God … and so is Love.
We have to use such words and categories to know God, we have no other language, but we have to be willing for him to make them mean something more. We have to acknowledge that awe and humility are foundational to any understanding of who he is.
Taking Paul’s example again in Phil 3; his longing is that “I may know him”. Knowing him is not easy, it is a life-consuming passion. We may speak, all too glibly, about having ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’, but we ought to acknowledge how awesome that is and how much He is beyond our understanding.
Saving faith is so much more than a mere believing in Jesus. It is a faith that believes as seeing (at least glimpsing) such holy glory that we have an inner compulsion to know him more. It is a faith that, seeing him, will count everything in us that keeps us from that knowledge as rubbish; pressing on in response to God’s upward call in Christ.
Where does this Leave us
Having read these scriptures, where have we come to?
There is something about pursuing God, pursuing Jesus, in the scriptures, that is so much more than learning things. You can’t truly come before God, or his word and be unchanged.
But neither can you expect to do it in one brief session. That’s too much like James’ man who looks at himself in the mirror and, when he goes away, forgets what he saw. We need to dwell on these things and let them dwell in us, in our thinking and feeling. Take them away, meditate over them, pray over them, talk about them with one another.