"Seven Habits of Discipleship:  Testimony"

Acts 10: 34-43; Luke 24: 36-49

Dr. George R. Sinclair
Pastor

Easter, April 4, 2010

Would you believe me if I told you—your heart will beat 100,000 times today?  Would you believe me if I told you—there 9 million people who share your birthday?  Would you believe me if I told you that before you die you’ll eat 60,000 pounds of food or the rough equivalent of three elephants?  Would you believe me if I told you—you’ll blink your eyes ten million times this year?  Would you believe me if I told you—there are over 319 trillion moves per side in the first four moves of a game of chess?

Heart beats, birthdays, Big Macs, eye blinks, and even chess moves can be quantified.  We can add them up.  They are “facts.” However strange, odd, peculiar or useless, they are facts. According to Webster’s, a fact is “a thing done.”  Facts point to “objective reality.”  Facts demonstrate “actual occurrences.” 

Would you believe me if I told you: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ shall come again?”  Are those facts, or wishful thinking? Mumbo jumbo? Propaganda?   

“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ shall come again.”

Jesus died. The death of Jesus was “a thing done.”  Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus was an “actual occurrence.”  Jesus forgives sinners. These are facts. These are the “things done” which we testify to.  The gospel is not idea or even an ideal.  The gospel is Ultimate Reality. Consider Luke’s story. It is set on Easter Sunday night.  Earlier that same day, some women had gone to the tomb of Jesus to complete his burial.  They arrive and find the tomb empty. Luke describes them as “perplexed.” They are perplexed because they expected to find a dead man. Instead they discovered an empty tomb.

The women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some other unnamed women don’t know what to make of the empty tomb—maybe grave robbers, maybe they’re at the wrong tomb?  They don’t know. They are perplexed.  Empty tombs defy rational explanation.  Tombs are not supposed to be empty. The women are perplexed by this “thing done” which does not fit their construal of reality.

Luke says an angel appeared:  “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is risen.”

The women race back to the disciples. They tell the story.  And the disciples think they are making it up:  “These words seemed to them [i.e. to the disciples] an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”  Tombs are not supposed to be empty.  Tombs hold the dead. Perhaps Peter believed the story. He’s at least curious or maybe he just wanted to confirm the idle tale.  So he runs to the tomb to see for himself and sure enough he finds it just as the women had said.  

Sometime later that same day two unnamed disciples leave Jerusalem and head toward Emmaus, a village about seven miles north of the city.  As they walk along, a stranger joins them and asks what they’re talking about. They say to him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”

And the stranger says, “What things?” What ‘things done?’

And they say to him, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet, mighty in word and deed. He was handed over to the authorities. They condemned to death and crucified him. We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.  And besides all of this it’s been three days and some women we know went to his tomb and came back telling this tale about seeing angels who told them he was alive. Some of us checked it out and sure enough the tomb was empty, but we didn’t see Jesus.’

“O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe.”  That’s what the stranger told Emmaus Road Travelers.  “O how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe.”

As the three approached Emmaus, the stranger appeared to be going on another destination.  “Won’t you stay with us?  It’s late. Have something to eat.”  So the stranger stays with them. And when he’s at table with them he takes bread, breaks it, blesses it, and they eat.  Luke says “their eyes were opened and they recognized [the stranger]; and he vanished from their sight.”

Luke is so subtle.  We all know he’s talking about Jesus.  The stranger on the Emmaus Road is the risen Lord. We all know that. That’s who is eating with the disconsolate disciples: Jesus. Jesus is the host. The risen Lord is the one opening the disciples’ eyes. The risen Lord makes their hearts burn with truth—‘The things done are not fantasy. Jesus really was the one to redeem Israel.’  That’s what we’re hoping the Emmaus Road Travelers get.  That’s what we hope we get.

Luke’s so brilliant.  He never uses Jesus’ name. Not once. But we know the stranger is Jesus. The One who breaks bread and opens eyes is Jesus. And this is so very puzzling and yet I think so very true: as soon as the disciples recognize Jesus, as soon as they see the stranger for who he really is, he vanishes. Their eyes are opened and he’s gone. Jesus leaves the Table, Emmaus, and the disciples.

The now eye-opened disciples can’t sit still.  Though the stranger is gone, they race back to Jerusalem. I don’t know, what is that—a two maybe three hour walk—seven miles?  The Emmaus Road travelers race to Jerusalem where they find “the eleven and their companions.”  The eleven and their companions have the same story:  “The Lord is risen . . . he has appeared to Simon.”  The Emmaus Travelers tell their story—what happened on the road and how Jesus had been “made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” It’s late. By now it’s very late in the day. And it has been a long day, one that began with an idle tale of angels and an empty tomb.  Rumors fly. Speculation. And guess who shows up?  We’re 36 verses into Luke’s story and this is the first time he uses the name.  “While they were talking about this [about all that had happened that day, the things done], Jesus himself stood among them. … They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.” 

The disciples were startled and terrified. Dead men don’t talk. Dead men don’t walk.  Dead men stay dead. We all know that. The disciples all knew that.  Now sure enough, strange things happen when people die.  When my dad died, the clock he wound every week—a seven-day mantle clock—stopped.  No, it didn’t stop a day or two after he was supposed to wind it. It stopped the hour he died.  My sisters came home from the hospital. I don’t know who saw it first—“The clock’s not ticking. And look at the time. Isn’t that when Daddy died?”  Later, we had problems with a light in the kitchen.  It was a few days after my father’s funeral and the darn light kept going on and off—you know—dimming.  Everybody has a good ghost story.  “They thought they were seeing a ghost.” Dead men don’t talk. Dead men don’t walk.  Dead men stay dead.  The disciples knew this.  Everybody knows that.

The risen Jesus has attitude. He talks to the eleven and their companions the same way he talked to the Emmaus Road Travelers:  “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see.”  He then showed them “his hands and his feet.” 

‘It’s me. Hey, you guys.  Look. It’s me. Jesus.  What’d you expect? I told you . . .’

In their joy and while they were disbelieving and still wondering, Jesus said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

“They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.” Dead men don’t eat fish!  These are the facts . . . the things done. Jesus ate with his disciples.

“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

You are witnesses to these things.  These are the “facts” of the gospel story, the things that happened.  The Jesus who rose was the same who taught. The Jesus who rose is the same who healed. The Jesus who rose is the same who was crucified.  Hope doesn’t raise Jesus from the grave. Faith doesn’t pull Jesus from the tomb. Imagination doesn’t.  Love doesn’t.  Rather, because Jesus is risen, we have faith.  Because Jesus is risen, we have hope. Because Jesus is risen, we love, we forgive and are forgiven.

“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”  You are witnesses to these things.  Don’t be shy about it—tell what you know.  Tell what you have seen and heard and touched—the Word of life who claimed you before your birth, whose love for you is as real as a bloody cross and an empty tomb.  Tell what you know—Christ died for sin.  You are forgiven.  The things you have done and the things you have left undone—are forgiven.  Christ forgives sin. 

I talked to an old friend last week.  He’s sixty-some now.  I’ve known him for twenty years. We both were once young and bigger fools.  He told me, “You know, I used to go to church and I believed. I believed in God. I believed God existed.  But now I know God.  Do you know what I mean?”

Yeah, I think I know.  I’ve seen it—faith so real you could touch it!

My mother died when she was 62.  She had brain cancer.  She lived about a year after they discovered her cancer.  It started out innocently enough—she couldn’t balance her check book—couldn’t do the math. And then she was having trouble reading patterns. She had sewed her entire life and all at once it was like she forgot how.  I thought it was stress or something like that. She went to her doctor who ordered a CT scan. I went with her the day she got the results.  That same day we saw a neurosurgeon.  He was a big burly guy. Had been in Vietnam as an Army doc. I really liked him.  Looked like a middle linebacker—big guy.

Well, after the scan the doctor ordered surgery. My mother goes through it—all four hours. Then 30 radiation treatments.  She has some deficits—physically and mentally, not a great deal, but some. She lost her hair.  But she was still able to go for walks. And she loved her ice-cream. 

About eight months into all of this she started slowing down.  She can’t walk so well.  Her thoughts are slower.  She has someone with her around the clock. She’s sleeping more.  So, we go back to the neuro guy.  I’ll never forget it.  They had done another scan and we were in his office.  My mother is sitting on the exam table. And she has on this scarf because by this time she’s buzzed off what hair she had left.

The doctor comes in the exam room and sits down on this little stool in front of my mother.  Though he’s a big man his head is lower than my mother’s. And she’s sitting up arrow straight, prim and proper, all five foot five and one hundred and twenty pounds of her. 

“Mrs. Sinclair, I’m afraid I don’t have good news for you. I wish I had something better to tell you.” But before he could finish, my little mother reaches out and pats this big burly man like a child.  She smiles at him and pats him on the arm as he’s looking down at his feet:  “It’s okay. I’m going to be all right.” 

“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

You are witnesses to these things.  Shout it from the rooftops.  Don’t be shy about it. You are living proof of the resurrection.  God makes himself known through our testimony.  You are the flesh and bone witnesses to the One who is risen.  It’s not an argument.  So don’t try to prove it.  You don’t have to prove anything. Leave proving to the Lord.  Tell what you know. Tell what you’ve heard. Tell what you’ve seen with your own eyes:  “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”  Amen.