May 12, 2024

Acts 1:6-14

Broadway Christian Church

David A. Shirey

            Thursday was Ascension Day, the day commemorating Jesus’ ascending into heaven.  It’s the story Eric read to us.  The risen Lord appeared to his disciples for 40 days. Easter Sunday was Day One. Thursday was Day Forty. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, departed his congregation of disciples on Ascension Day. What are they going to do without him? Likewise, what does this Scripture say to Broadway, a congregation of disciples whose good shepherd of 25 years, Terry Overfelt, departed two weeks ago and whose hired hand substitute shepherd, David Shirey, is on his way out in four weeks?      

            Not to worry!  I have good news for you. Jesus made a promise to his congregation of disciples as he departed and ascended. The promise was and is: “You will receive power.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8)  That word translated power appears 88 times in the New Testament. In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word is δυναμιν (dynamin) from which we get our word dynamite. As he is departing, Pastor Jesus promises his congregation he’ll leave them some dynamite: the power of the Holy Spirit.    

            Now, there are a lot of people who'd get a good laugh out of that – saying churches are powered by dynamite. I can hear some smart aleck say, Pardon me, Preacher, but if you asked me to come up with one word to describe my experience of church, dynamite wouldn’t make the top ten. Words that mean the opposite of dynamite would be there instead. Words that connote more fizzle than sizzle. Know what I mean? 

            I do.  I understand. I keep track of the reasons people don’t go to church or quit going to church. Some of the reasons I’ve heard over and over include:

·      Hypocrisy. Somebody says, They call themselves Christians! They’ll know we are Christians by our love?  They sing the song, but they don’t do the deed. Bunch of grumpy grouches. Cranky complainers is what they are. They talked the talk but they didn't walk the walk, so I walked.  Hypocrisy is a turn-off.   

·      So is wrathful religion. You know: judgmental, guilt-inducing, fear-mongering religion. Painting God as a scowling bad cop in the sky who's always trying to catch us doing or thinking something wrong so God can pounce and punish. The Christian life as a litany of Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Wrathful religion is a turn-off.     

·      Then there’s boredom, the polar opposite of dynamite. Someone says Church? B-o-o-o-oring. My college roommate used to say, “Dave, I’m going to sleep in my own bed rather than in a pew. I go to church at Bedsheet Baptist and listen to Reverend I. M. Snoozin’.” Boredom turns people away from church.

            I can understand how for many people words like church and dynamite don't seem to belong in the same sentence. Which points to a serious problem. Namely, Jesus promised power (dynamite!) to his followers, but all too many people's experience of the Christian faith is anything but dynamic. Annie Dillard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, says all of us ought to come to worship with heightened expectations. She wrote, “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? ... We should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.” (Teaching a Stone to Talk. Harper and Row. 1982.) What happened? Why is it that what Jesus promised isn’t many people’s experience of the Christian faith? Where’s the power? 

            Consider this – At the end of Luke’s Gospel and in the first chapter of Acts, Jesus promises power. In the second chapter of Acts (the Day of Pentecost), they received that promised power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. But in between the promise and its fulfillment what did they do? The answer is they prayed.  Eric read it: "They returned to Jerusalem, and when they got there, they went up to an upper room where they were staying… and with one accord they devoted themselves to prayer" (Acts 1:12-14). Note the chronology: 1) The promise of power 2) Prayer 3) The promised power. Which suggests to me that if Jesus promised dynamite to his followers but there’s a notable absence of that promised power, there must be a short in the circuit somewhere – most likely in the place reserved for "devoted prayer." 

            I asked myself this week (and you can ask yourself, too): Am I aware of the dynamite power of God's Holy Spirit in my life? If the answer isn’t an emphatic "Yes!" then I need to ask myself if the phrase "devoted to prayer" describes my spiritual life. If it doesn’t, then there's the problem. Simply stated: where there is no prayer, there is no power. Where there is a little prayer, there’s a little power. But where there is a life devoted to prayer – seeking God’s face, striving to discern God’s purposes, getting yourself out of the way so that God’s way can proceed – there is dynamite: power for living life with verve, purpose, and peace that passes understanding.

            Jennie and I spent nine years of ministry in Wilmington, NC on the Atlantic coast throughout the decade of the 90s. During our time there, we took direct hits by Hurricanes Bonnie, Fran, and Bertha. What we learned as a family is that post-hurricane, the first two questions that proceed from people’s mouths are 1) Are you all right? and 2) Do you have power?  Power as in electricity, which after hurricanes we were without for anywhere from hours to days to weeks. We learned that life is not good without power. No power, no lights. No power, no water (we had a well). No power, no stove. No power, no refrigeration. No power, no hot water heater. No power, no air conditioning. Which all added up to no power, no patience. Orneriness, short tempers, ‘hot and bothered’ were the order of the day. In sum: No power. No good.

            Laura, our youngest, was four years old when one hurricane blew through. She’d go around the house, reach up, turn on a light switch, and when nothing happened, she’d announce, “We don’t have the power (pronounced the pow-uh).” One day late that week we went to the church. Out of habit, she reached out to turn on a light switch, and voila – the lights came on! Her eyes lit up, her jaw dropped open, a huge grin broke out on her face, she tossed her arms up in the air and shouted, “The church has the power!” She told everyone she could find, “Mama, the church has the power! Will (her brother), the church has the power! Betsy (her sister), the church has the power!” My brothers and sisters, Broadway Christian Church and each of you disciples of Christ are promised the power of the Holy Spirit and it is available for the asking, the asking that is fervent prayer.

            I hasten to add this: the power of the Holy Spirit is given for a purpose. That purpose, according to Scripture, is so we can be Jesus’ witnesses here in Columbia and to the ends of the earth. Jesus ascended to the right hand of God on high, but we disciples remain here below to continue Jesus’ work empowered by the Holy Spirit (what someone called “Jesus’ presence in his absence”). “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.”  I don’t know what connotations the Holy Spirit has in your mind. Fill in the blank:  The Holy Spirit is given to us by God to ____________?

• Give us goosebumps? 

• Soothe and calm us?

• Light a fire under us?

• Inspire us? 

• Enlighten us?

• Wrap us in a blanket of God-love?

• Give us a gift?  (Love, joy, peace, patience…)

• Set us to speaking in tongues?

            There’s scriptural justification for all the above, but in this case the primary purpose of the Holy Spirit is to empower us to be Jesus’ witnesses – living, breathing embodiments of Good News. I remember the first time somebody had me look up the Greek word for witness. I didn't know Greek – Greek “was all Greek to me” –  but the letters of the New Testament Greek word translated witness made me shudder. The letters are m-a-r-t-u-r-i-a  Martyr. A witness is a martyr? Someone who suffers and dies for their faith! You and I may not want to think of ourselves as martyrs, but though we may not be called to die for our faith, we are called to live for it. Every day we’re presented with choices of how we’ll comport ourselves: what we say, how we say it, how we act. We’re called to be witnesses and God gives us the dynamite of the Holy Spirit so we can live for our faith.

            A man named Sheldon Van Aucken wrote a book titled “Severe Mercy.” It was a compilation of letters he had written to C.S. Lewis when he was searching for God but had not yet made a Christian commitment. In one of the letters, he wrote, “The strongest argument I have yet for Christianity is Christians. Their love, most of all. Their joy, as well. Their certainty of things to come.” He added, “The strongest argument I have found yet against Christianity is also Christians. When they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and complacent. When they are narrow, judgmental and repressive, lacking love, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths in my mind.”[1]

            Broadway Christian Church, on this Sunday after the Ascension, after the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ departed his disciples, after Pastor Terry completed her ministry with you, before I leave, I want to remind you that you’ve been promised power from on high to be witnesses of the Good News here at Broadway and to the ends of the earth. Devote yourselves to prayer so that, filled with the dynamite of the Holy Spirit, you’ll be witnesses – compelling arguments in favor of Christianity. In a world where the behavior of too many Christians turns people off, may you turn people on to the beauty and blessing and inclusiveness of life in Christ. Rather than being hypocrites, be people of integrity. Rather than espousing wrathful religion, be merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love.  Rather than being boring, be a vital, vibrant, dynamic people. May it be said of you what my daughter shouted thirty years ago: “Mama, Daddy, that church –Broadway Christian Church – has the power!

            May it be so.  AMEN.

[1] quoted by Dave Johnson in “Lead With Love,” a sermon delivered at Ginghamsburg Church, August 7-8, 1999