Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our First lesson (Acts 5: 12, 17-32).

The apostles, empowered by the Holy Spirit, seem very brave in our Acts lesson. Just a short time before this, in our Gospel lesson just a few months before, they had been scared of the authorities and hiding together in a locked upper room. Jesus had told them �Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.� He told them �Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.� This frightened little bedraggled band of misfits were told that they would hold the keys of forgiveness here on earth, with the chief key being the message of forgiveness in Jesus that they were to proclaim to others.

�Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.� Do we understand what Jesus is saying there? The Father sent Jesus to tell and demonstrate this message of love and forgiveness. Jesus demonstrated that love on the cross, giving his life as a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus taught of that love throughout his ministry, in phrases so familiar to us like John 3:16 �For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.� We know and trust that Jesus came, was sent, for us and our rescue from sin, death and the devil. Now the resurrected Jesus is telling his disciples that just as the Father sent the Son to tell and demonstrate this message, the Son is now sending the disciples. Earlier he had told them (Luke 12: 11) �When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.�

The apostles, who were so frightened about being arrested immediately after Jesus� death and resurrection, have apparently taken Jesus� words of peace to heart by Acts 5. Peter and John had been arrested by Caiaphas and Annas and the other high priests already in Acts 4. They had been warned not to speak of Jesus. Now all of the apostles were arrested and must have been wondering if it was now their turn to be killed, perhaps crucified as Jesus had been.

When Jesus was being arrested, Peter fought back with a sword and Jesus told him to put the sword away because if his Father wanted, he could send down legions of angels to protect him. Now the disciples are rescued from the prison, but it doesn�t take even two angels, just one. One angel opens the doors and tells them to keep on telling �the people the full message of this new life.�

They go out publicly and begin telling people in the temple how Jesus is the Messiah, crucified and resurrected, that one Messiah that Israel had been waiting for. They are again arrested and brought before the Council, told not to speak this name of Jesus anymore. The apostles replied �We must obey God rather than men! 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead-- whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree�. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.� If we had read farther we would see that the Caiaphas and Annas and the bunch were so angry that they wanted to kill the apostles, but were persuaded not to by Gamaliel, a respected teacher of the Pharisees. The Council did have the apostles flogged, but that only made them rejoice because they �had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name� of Jesus (Acts 5: 41).

Anyone here been arrested or flogged for the name of Jesus lately? I haven�t. I don�t think any of you have either. I do know that a few of you, a few of us, have had some persecution aimed our direction because we cling to the name of Jesus. I�ve had conversations with a few of you who were surprised by some persecution for something as simple as inviting someone to church. But our �suffering disgrace for his name� is pretty minor compared to the arrest and flogging of the apostles, or of the persecution that still occurs around the world. We often vacillate between being like the disciples in the upper room, afraid to speak out for fear of persecution, and being like the disciples in the temple courts, willing to take bold stands for our Lord, come what may.

We�re feeling the social pressure against the name of Christ more and more in this country. Many Christians in our country are very disturbed about whether or not we might take the words �under God� out of our pledge of allegiance. Just so you know, I hope it gets left in. I hope the Supreme Court does not succumb to what I fear is misguided pressure and misguided interpretation of the constitution to remove such phrases from our civic pledges. But will I be greatly disturbed if it gets taken out? Will I write an editorial to that effect? Probably not. What we say in our generalized civic pledges, while well meaning, is not nearly as important to me as what we say in our specific confessions of faith, both here in this sanctuary and outside when we share the name of Jesus with others. I do hope that the phrase �under God� remains in our civic pledges. But I hope and pray much more for our own willingness to speak the name and life-saving message of Jesus Christ. I pray that we will always be willing to gently and respectfully say �Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.� I hope that we will always be willing to ask others questions like �Do you have a church home?� and then invite them to ours if they don�t.

When I�m outside this sanctuary sharing the message of our faith to others, I rarely use the generic term �God� anymore. People expect pastors to talk a lot about �God�, but I find that generic name to have so much baggage with so many, that I use it less and less frequently. I speak more and more about �Jesus� and �Christ�. All kinds of non-Christian, even anti-Christian groups are willing to speak about a generic �god.� But only we in the Christian church are empowered to speak the Name that is above all other names, the Name that will bring every knee to bow, the name of Jesus. The High priest and the Sanhedrin would have been quite satisfied if the apostles had been speaking a generic message about �God�, but the apostles were talking about Jesus! They were making the outrageous claim that: �31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.�

The Christian church grows as the Word of the Lord Jesus grows. The believers at the time of the apostles were meeting regularly to hear the Word of the Lord, to worship him. The early Christian believers devoted themselves to the apostles� teaching (Acts 2: 42). The Church grows as the light of Christ shines in believers� hearts and out to the hearts of others.

A young farmer in the 1800�s in Missouri was awakened one night by his anxious and very pregnant wife: �It�s time dear. Get the doctor.� When the farmer returned with the doctor, it was time. But it was dark and there were no electric lights, so the doctor worked by lantern. �Hold the lantern up� he told the man. Shortly the baby was born � a boy. The father, full of joy and relief, lowered the lantern. But the doctor said, �Hold the light up again.� This time a girl was born. The father was thrilled, but when he lowered the lantern, the doctor said again, �Hold up the light. Another baby is coming.� Another boy � triplets. Thrilled but a little confused, the farmer turned and placed the lantern on the table. He turned to the doctor and said, �Doc, do you think they were attracted by the light?� (modified from Dr. Glenn O�Shoney, Exec. Director, Board of Mission Services, LCMS, St. Louis, Concordia Pulpit Resources, April 2001).

Who is attracted by your light, the light of your witness and your life? Who sees your obedient life in God, in Christ, and wonders why you are at peace with Him? Who hears your repentant voice say �Christ is risen�. Who knows that you cling to the full message of this new life in Him? When you let others hear the name of Jesus come from your lips, they may think you are a fanatic, a nut that perhaps should be jailed. But we have a Lord who releases prisoners from jail. I asked earlier if any of us had been arrested and jailed for the name of Jesus. In a very real sense, we have been. We were locked in the jail of death, unable to release ourselves, but Jesus himself came and released us from that jail by his death and resurrection. If that isn�t something to be fanatical about, to joyfully tell others about, I don�t know what is.

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)