Good Morning Friends,
One of the great challenges of witnessing is knowing when to move on. There will be some people that simply will not listen no matter what we say to them or what efforts we take to be an effective witness. Timothy for example was circumcised as an adult to better witness to Jews. That really showed his commitment and sensitivity to traditions. It did not work. Even if we use the most creative means, consistently show them the love of Christ, and pray for them daily, for some, their hearts may remain as hard as stone. We pray that the mercy of God will find them. We pray that His love will locate them and when His love reaches them, His mercy will come upon them. But once the seed is planted we have a decision to make guided by the Spirit present at the death of Christ on the Cross in the hopes that we in time will see the person we are trying to reach in heaven. When it comes to being fishers of men and women the Holy Spirit catches and we are to release. In some ways the fish has to want to be caught. So when the time comes, Do We Go Or Let Go?
Scripture: When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
Acts 18:5-6 (NRSV)
One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.” He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. They said, “This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.” Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.” And he dismissed them from the tribunal. Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things. After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the believers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow.
Acts 18:9-18 (NRSV)
Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
John 16:20-23 (NRSV)
Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.
John 19:31-34 (NRSV)
Message: I have never given birth to a baby. My wife has however twice and I have been there during the labor of those two pregnancies. We even took Lamaze classes, so I know about breathing, but then both babies were delivered by Cesarean section. And what we see in the Gospel of John and our scripture from Acts today reminds me of those experiences and how it relates to the work of birthing the church and the power of the Holy Spirit, sometimes opening doors and sometimes closing them…sometimes saying no and sometimes saying go. And the beauty is that despite the discomfort of the births they both resulted in a transformation that can only be described as joy. There was and still is love and commitment and the presence of the Holy Spirit caught up in the process. The passengers and passages of discomfort became objects of total love and joy. So too we see the pain in the birthing of the church in the events on the cross…the piercing and the blood and the water. We see the pain of closed doors and the challenge of facing open doors, empty tombs and joy of new ways without completely rejecting the traditions we have embraced in the past. So today we are encouraged to see the presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the process. The rituals and vows are still in the background even as we sympathize in our hearts with the call to community and love and the tension in dilating the boundaries and cutting new territory because of love. Traditions are important. Still we must listen to the Holy Spirit for the proper timing of things, for a door shut once may indeed be opened in the future as it was in Paul’s missionary journey to Asia.
And So, this morning on our journey to Pentecost we contemplate the power of God’s love for us on the cross and in the process of giving birth and of birthing revival even as we too are guided to love in the pain of closed doors. In our Gospel lesson for this morning Jesus Christ is telling His disciples, before His crucifixion, that they should grieve now because when they see Jesus again resurrected, it would be a time of joy. It is our hope that each person we share the Gospel realizes that this same joy is what we hope we all will experience when we believe. Jesus gave a good illustration of the violent contrast between the sorrow of being held captive in a wilderness state and the joy of the Resurrection. The illustration describes a woman’s pain in giving birth. She suffers so much that she literally groans and gasps in desperation for the new life to begin. Once the child is born, the sorrow and pain are all forgotten because a new life has emerged. The resurrection brings irrepressible joy to those who believe replacing pain with joy. We are no longer alienated from God because the resurrection and ascension has given us an open door into God’s presence.
Pray the Holy Spirit comes upon us and transforms us in love casting out fear, even fear of death. Pray into the most powerful evangelizing, healing and community building force in human history…the birth of a child…the birth of believers born again. Pray we see the continuation of Christ’s ministry in our very midst. Pray we see the face of Jesus in each other. Pray we stay when we need to stay and go when we need to go, but always let God rule in the power of our life, body and spirit. Pray Christ sets us free.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 