What Are We Going To Do About It?

What Are We Going To Do About It?

Good Morning Friends,

We were made believers on Easter Sunday, and now we are called to be witnesses. And so we are called together as the people of God to be the living body of Christ to take up our commission and carry this gospel to the ends of the earth. Believe it or not, Easter is only the beginning. What Are We Going To Do About It?

Scripture: 16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’^*

Matthew 28:16-29 (NRSV)

And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

Amos 7:12-15 (NRSV)

³After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. ⁴While staying^* with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; ⁵for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with^* the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ 6 So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ ⁷He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ ⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. ¹³When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of^* James. ¹⁴All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

Acts 1:3-14 (NRSV)

Message: Believe it or not Easter does not end on Sunday, but rather extends in its liturgical season for 7 weeks, about the amount of time Christ was said to be on earth with his disciples after his resurrection and before his ascension into heaven. It is a time when Jesus gave the disciples a largely unrecorded instruction about the task of discipleship without him. However as it works out today most of us go back to earning our bread as we start the countdown to Pentecost. And for some of us we will strive to blend our work and God’s. But for others, today is Easter Monday, a holiday in some places around the world. There is Dyngus Day or Wet Monday and Sham El Nessim (the smelling of the breeze). To be faithful to scripture I think we are to get back to our daily routines of hard work while extending the joy of Easter as a witness to life. Here out of the plain work of world we are called to give our testimony. Unglamorous as it is we are to head back to our Galilees where we will learn to do more…here even though inexperienced and insecure in many ways we will risk just a little more. For after Christ rose from the dead we are to realize that everybody can be used in Christian service. So we come to see that after Easter we are only just getting started. Despite the meal preparations, choir rehearsals, Lenten practices, and Easter lilies we are at the beginning and like the women at the empty tomb… the experience is both wonderful and terrifying.

Pray we realize that Resurrection Sundays come every week. Pray that Christ’s plan is to be our plan. Pray we learn as in today’s scripture from Amos that we do not have be anybody extra special for God to use us. Pray we realize we can do a new thing. Pray we realize that we can trust God to equip us for whatever He asks us to do. Pray we realize that we are more than we think we are. Pray we realize that our prosperity is not the same as righteousness. Pray for those looking for a job to glorify the risen Lord.

Blessings,

John Lawson