April 8, 2018 | Rev. Graham McCaffrey
Scripture: Acts 4:32-35
“With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” – Acts 4:33
When Bethany and I were first engaged, I must admit I was appalled by the whole wedding-industrial complex. Weddings these days are complex events, often requiring a wedding planner to pull off all the various elements. It seems that people look to one-up one another on how extravagant their wedding can be – the best dress, the best ring, the best cake and so on. There are television shows about getting the perfect dress, the perfect wedding etc. It’s all a little much.
With such extravagance comes an extravagant cost. The average cost of a wedding in Canada has ballooned to almost $31,000 – quite the bill for the new married couple and their families to absorb. And sadly according to Statistics Canada 41% of first time marriages will end in divorce, being married 7 years these days is considered a long time.
So much money is spent, so many tears are shed, so much planning and anxiety all for one day, with many couples completely ignoring any preparations for the lifetime of partnership that they vowing to each other. So much attention goes into the single day of the wedding but often little thought goes into the marriage, which according to the vows people make, should last a lifetime. Weddings are undoubtedly important, they should be celebrated but not at the expense of the relationships we have with our spouses.
As Christians, as the Church we can often make the same mistake – we can be so wrapped up in Holy Week and Easter, in the planning, the preparations, the effort, the services, in the great story of the death and Resurrection of Jesus – but when it is all done and finished we can sometimes move on with our life as if nothing happened, as if this great story has had no impact on our life as a Church, on our life as disciples.
We are fortunate that we get to hear the great story of Easter every year, reminding ourselves of God’s great love for us in the death and Resurrection of Jesus; we are fortunate that we celebrate Easter for a whole 50 days, Easter is a season after-all, not just a day. But even that isn’t quite true enough, Easter isn’t just a season that ends at Pentecost – it is a new life opened up for all, it is the transformation of the world beginning in the Garden on that first Easter day and radiating as each person hears the Good News of Jesus Christ and responds in faith.
Easter day is like the great wedding of history – it is the ultimate moment in the world’s relationship with God; Easter is the day where God sends his very own Son to have and to hold us, for better or for worse, to love and to cherish us; Easter is the day where God’s promises to us of his love, mercy and grace are confirmed for all of creation to witness; Easter is where God vows abundant life and eternal life for all and not ‘until death do us part’, because not even death can separate us from God’s love. Easter is the ultimate wedding day where no expense is saved, where we are lavished with all of God’s good gifts.
We are right to celebrate Easter; we are right to put in our best efforts, we are right to revel in the joy of the occasion. But like a wedding, after Easter comes the rest of our lives, we are not just people who celebrate Easter, but we are Easter people living out of the new life that God offers through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
As such we need to seriously contemplate what our daily life means as a result of God’s great acts. That is why for the next two weeks I want to focus on ‘Life in light of Easter’ or perhaps more appropriately ‘Life in the light of Easter’. Let’s dig in:
“With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” – Acts 4:33
Throughout the season of Easter, we get to hear a lot from the book of Acts, which is in a way the Bible’s answer to the question ‘How do we live in the light of Easter’ – The book of Acts is the story of how the good news shared by Mary Magdalene and the other women spread beyond the Garden; it is the story of how the disciples became apostles and how this thing we call the Church was born.
Acts provides us a glimpse at what it means to live after Easter – it presents us a challenge as we seek to know the transformative power of God in our lives to bring abundant and eternal life to us, and through us.
In our short reading from the book of Acts this morning there are two major themes which help to inform us about what life in the light of Easter should look like:
- Testimony: “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” – Acts 4:33
- Care for all: “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.” Acts 4:34
Testimony: Living in the light of Easter, living as Easter-people, means sharing our own encounter with the risen Jesus by word and deed. Every action recorded in the book of Acts and the early history of the Church is rooted in the proclamation of Jesus, it is rooted in the sharing of the Good News that Jesus died, that God raised him and that because of that our sin is forgiven and death no longer holds power over us.
The apostles were not well-educated, they weren’t great public speakers trained in the best tricks and rhetoric of Greco-Roman oration, they weren’t great debaters – they were normal working men and women, normal working men and women just like you.
Yet as they gave their testimony, great power and great grace rested upon them. In the simple sharing of their faith story God imbued them with power and grace – and on more than one occasion hundreds and sometimes thousands came to know a life-giving faith in God rooted in Jesus Christ.
Living in the light of Easter means being ready and willing to share our faith stories, being willing to share how God has worked in our lives, how we have encountered the risen Christ in the Scriptures; or how we have encountered the risen Christ in the work of the church; or perhaps how we have encountered the risen Christ in the love and care bestowed on us by a stranger. We may feel clumsy; we may feel that we don’t have any story of value to share with the world; we may feel that our faith story is mundane – but it is in the simple sharing of our faith stories that the grace and power of God fill this world. Just as the disciples spoke of their encounter with Jesus, we too are encouraged to share our encounters with Jesus – and who knows what will happen? Living in the light of Easter means trusting that God will provide the grace and power, we only need to provide the testimony!
That brings us to our second theme today: Care for all
For the apostles and early church, it was not enough to merely tell people about their encounters with the risen Christ – they modeled God’s love for all, by ensuring that everyone’s earthly needs were cared for. Three of the four verses we heard from Acts 4 this morning speaks directly to needs of all being met, something which repeats itself time and time again throughout the book and the earliest history of the church.
When we read passages like this, I think that sometimes we dismiss them because they seem too far-fetched to our modern ears – who would sell their houses and lands, who would give up all that they own – how would they live without a roof over their head! Those of us who own homes, or have possessions, can feel threatened by passages like this because it seems that we have to give-up everything that we have worked hard for, it seems that Jesus is calling us to give up our security.
And if these passages cut a little too close to the heart, then perhaps Jesus is calling us to loosen our grasp on worldly things by giving more away – but at the heart of these passages, is the care for all. In response to the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the apostles and those who responded to the Gospel made sure that everyone in the fellowship of the church was cared for. Everyone was fed, everyone had enough to live on, everyone had proper accommodation.
Living in the light of Easter means that our priorities change, we move from caring for ourselves (and our families) to caring for all. This means that the decisions we make will reflect a greater scope than just ourselves – how we spend our time, our talent and our treasure for the sake of others.
Living in the light of Easter means that we will take the time to help others, others who are part of our fellowship here at Church, but also those who aren’t. Perhaps it means helping someone move, perhaps it means volunteering your time at a local community centre or at our monthly community lunch. Perhaps it means sitting with some who just needs a friend. As church it means that our time is spent not just on self-preservation but making sure the needs of all are met by our common life together.
Living in the light of Easter means we will use our gifts and abilities for the care of all. Perhaps it means cooking for someone who is bed-ridden with illness, perhaps it means praying for those who are in need, perhaps it means helping someone with repairs they need without asking for anything in return. As a church it means that our gifts and abilities are not just used to make our worship better, but so that people’s lives are materially bettered by our common life together.
Living in the light of Easter means we will use our financial resources, ‘so that there is not a needy person among’ us. Perhaps it means giving up some of your creature comforts to increase your financial support of charities and the church. Perhaps it means being ready and willing to help out members of this community who struggle to make ends meat. Perhaps it is dedicating to financially support our outreach endeavours so that our neighbours can be fed by our food programs. As a church it means that our budget needs to progressively move away from merely maintaining our building and our way of life, and move towards a greater emphasis on caring for the needs of our neighbours and community in outreach.
Living in the light of Easter is rooted in our testimony and our care for all. May we carry the joy that we experienced last Sunday into the rest of our lives; May we carry it out into the world by our words and actions; May people who we meet as a church and as individual disciples come the joy and truth of God’s love as we live in the light of Easter.
Amen.