Pentecost - Birthday of the Church 6/1/41
Scripture: Luke 24: 13-35; Acts 1: 6-8 and Acts 2: 1-4a.
Text: Acts 1: 8a; “...ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” (American Standard)
Eugene Austin has remarked that the Christian religion was born one day when a Galilean fisherman looked up at the Carpenter from Nazareth and said, “Truly, thou art the Son of God.” It is so, even today, that the Christian religion is born in the hearts of people when they can look at the Christ and believe on him with all their hearts.
Perhaps we ought to say that the Christian religion died when the Carpenter died in agony on a Roman cross. For with that tragic event the faith of the disciples died down and left them, not just “feeling low,” but in deepest despair. All of their hopes were dashed to earth and buried as surely as was their Master’s body.
Hope was born again in the hearts of some at the news of the first Easter morn. Others found it on the road to Emmaus. It was fanned into faithful flame at Pentecost, when the church of the living Christ was born in the hearts of Christ’s disciples. The observance of Pentecost, traditionally noted on the seventh Sunday after Easter, is a celebration of the Church’s birthday.
These records of things that happened 1900 years ago are worth reading with the eye of a historian. What happens to change or invigorate human lives is always of importance to other people.
But the record is also worth reading with our contemporary eye. There are definite respects in which the moods and circumstances and needs of that time are the moods and needs and circumstances of today.
How much like some of the ways of today was that cheerless road to Emmaus, traveled by Cleopas and the other one. The road is still there, winding over the Judean hills from Jerusalem to Emmaus, dusty and hot. Even the thoughts of those two travelers were forlorn. Their conversation had to do with ghastly memories and bitter disappointment. It seemed that the death, at the hands of cruel executioners, of the One on whom they had fastened their hope was a continuing nightmare. In their disillusionment, one wonders if they may not have been even a little cynical over the many promises of the Nazarene, now that his possible achievements seemed cut so short.
Haven’t you been on that road, too? Have you ever given yourself to something brave and gallant, only to see adverse circumstances or opposition or misunderstanding beat your hopes into the ground? Have you dreamed of a better world - a lovely place of abode for you and your children and your friends only to have death snatch a loved one, or some unforeseen quake shake the beautiful structure to the ground?
And then perhaps a Stranger appeared at your side and touched your arm or your heart, and with infinite patience explained the mysteries that you never before understood. And peace came over your soul. Out of the night’s blackness, hope dawned. And strength flowed again into your heart.
Remember the story of Cleopas and the other disciple; how they urged the Stranger who had joined them on the road to stop and have supper with them and spend the night at their house. See, when they are seated at the table how He took the humble bread and broke it open and blessed it and gave it to them. And suddenly, in the midst of what they had supposed to be death they saw life. In that blessing and that sharing, was their Lord. And in these He lives! And immediately they joined their friends in Jerusalem to bring one more glad testimony of the gospel of the Living Lord.
This is not just ancient history. The story is a picture of our contemporary life. If people of our time have not walked the road to Emmaus, who ever did? Our adult generation tried hard to build a better world, and succeeded in producing bomb shelters, gas masks, and vastly improved destruction. That generation tried to give the world democracy, and the remaining strongholds of democracy are attacked from without and have been exploited from within. We have sought peace and got the wars which once we outlawed. We tried disarmament and got the biggest and most destructive armament this battered old world has ever seen. We hoped for the coming of the brotherhood of man and then realized that millions had neglected or deserted their churches where the ideal has been most persistently cherished. We have promoted a social conscience and taught social justice. And yet workers still know discontent and men of wealth wonder what the future can hold for what they have and stand for. Our common mood has been one of “quiet desperation.”
Probably one of our difficulties with this mood is that we are not disposed to do much about it. We’re even going to avoid the discussion and despair of the Emmaus road if we can! We’ve wanted our cake and ice cream. We’ve wanted normalcy, security. We would rather have no one disturb us. And if somebody suggests to us that we are terribly selfish and extravagant we fidget a bit and then remember an errand which must be attended to. Perhaps we don’t want to understand Jesus well enough to unstop our ears and listen to what he says.
For one of the things Jesus said again and again is that the evil of the world can be redeemed only by suffering. We don’t want to suffer. We want to be comfortable. We certainly don’t want to be martyrs. We would willingly let the saints “take care of that angle of religion.”
It is not wonder that we do not yet know enough about life to be its master. The idea that we seriously held, just a short time ago, that man was at last sufficiently intelligent and well-informed, to make his own world better, has been dashed to ruin. Man is not God! And only the grace of God can even make him god-like. We desperately need the Presence of another. And that Presence is to be found only along the hard road to Emmaus where men struggle under their load of care and their own inadequacy.
Jacob -clever, tricky, wily young Jacob - never learned much about real living until he made up his mind, after years in a foreign land, to go back to his brother whom he had cheated. It meant swallowing his pride. It meant danger, too, for Esau’s wrath was still murderous. But on that road, Jacob met an angel, and, wrestling, found the Presence of the Eternal. [Genesis 32: 1-32.].
The Prodigal Son, quite sufficient in his worldly wisdom and experience, until outraged reality finally reduced him to misery, found the sustaining love of his father when, out of his suffering he moved along the road toward that love which he had formerly cast aside. [Luke 15: 11-24].
Perhaps the failures of this disillusioned world of our time can be redeemed if, instead of ducking discomfort and suffering, we frankly start along the road, willing to “take it,” if we may but find the sustaining Presence.
Perhaps you and I may yet learn why the swords and the spears, the nails and the hatreds could not kill Jesus. Perhaps it may be given us to see that the failures are not failures at all, but stepping stones used by God for the leading of his erstwhile stubborn, headstrong children!
If we can learn to accept life as it really is, with its suffering as well as its joys, perhaps we shall find the Presence in the simple breaking of bread, or the gift of work, that shall enable us to live trustfully step by step, all of the way.
These men who had walked the Emmaus road, had their eyes opened when they found that Jesus was present with them. And then their hearts burned within them. And they set out for Jerusalem to join the others.
The experience was repeated in the experience of a few here, and a few there, of the scattered apostles and disciples of Jesus until they, gathering together, made up a considerable company of revived enthusiasts.
Disciplined by the suffering of their Lord and by their own anguish, heartened by his continuing Presence, waiting and working and worshipping together, there came at length the Holy Spirit of God upon their assembly. The Lord had promised them this spirit. And when it came, each one was filled with the grace and the power to meet life, unconquerable!
There the church was born. The fellowship came to life. The missionary zeal to carry the gospel to an indifferent, or a hostile, world was engendered. Hearts were set on fire with zeal.
Someone has said that the eighth verse of the first chapter of Acts is the key to the understanding of the whole book. “Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Then follows the words, “and ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem [your own city and community] and in all Judea [your own county and state} and in Samaria [your neighboring state] and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”
Friends, the Presence is by our side ready to bless our bread and toil, to teach us, to prepare us for anything. If we are able to accept life just as it is, in order to see and understand the Lord of the church, we may confidently expect the revisitation and continuing presence of His Holy Spirit on the church in our day. When and where that happens, the witnessing goes on.
Do you want to be right? For real peace of soul, and genuine integrity, depend not just on social approval, or on ethical attitude and conduct alone, but upon the presence in your life of the Redeemer, whose grace and power alone is sufficient. You and I are not able alone to be what we really want to be. But with His presence, we can be far more than we supposed was possible.
The Lord of the Church be with us all!
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, June 1, 1941
Wisconsin Rapids, June 6, 1954
Faith Reformed Church, June 6, 1954