But, God…
Based on Acts 10:34-40, 1Corinthians 15:19-26, John 20:1-18
There was a time in the United Methodist Church and its predecessors where people would ask if they could give their testimony during worship, at revivals or even just meeting someone for the first time. This practice has become almost unknown in our day – at least in the non-Evangelical mainline Christian denominations, and that is unfortunate because testimonies are powerful personal narratives of how God is at work in the lives of those around us. Testimonies are a way of making real the mysterious actions of God in someone’s life. The narratives usually start out with a person living their life, then something happens – a tragedy, a health crisis, a job or relationship loss, a death of someone close, or someone coming to a dead-end in their life from an addiction, poor choices or bad luck. The person giving the testimony relates that they were stuck, didn’t know what to do next or how they were going to move forward in their life. The key moment in every testimony is when the narrator says something like, “I was about to give up, but God…” From that point on, the testimony details an epiphany about how God made a way when there seemed to be no way.
A number of years ago I was asked to give a testimony in my home church in Arlington. It was during the time in my life where I was discerning my call to attend seminary – a call which would take me away from my profession as a hospital clinical pharmacist. I was not unhappy with my first call as a pharmacist – in fact, I was 20 years into practice, and I really couldn’t imagine doing anything else for the rest of my working life. I wasn’t looking for anything different, but God came calling. One decision led to another, and I found myself walking ever closer to God and farther away from my role as a pharmacist. The epiphany for me was when God showed me that I was being called out of hospital pharmacist practice to work in the Church – which many have called God’s hospital. Once that happened, there was no turning back – God had made a way for me to serve that made use of all my knowledge and experience caring for people.
The Bible is full of testimonies from everyday people who experienced the power of God to change the way that they live in the world. Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth, Jonah and all of the other prophets, the psalmists, the Disciples, the Gospel writers and Saul who became the Apostle Paul, are all people who provide their stories about the wonderful way that God came into their lives and changed them for the better. Today’s reading from the Book of Acts has Peter speaking to a Roman Centurion and his household about how Peter thought he was following God, but God had shown him that Gentile believers were every bit as welcome to follow Jesus as were the Jews. Peter testifies to his listeners about the truth of Jesus and how he was killed by crucifixion, but God raised him from the dead on the third day!
Paul, at the end of his first letter to the believers in Corinth has been reminding them about the importance of the Resurrection of Jesus the Christ to their faith. Paul relates that as a former persecutor of the believers of Jesus he doesn’t deserve to be called an apostle. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect”, he testifies. Further, he reminds them, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” Because God acted out of God’s grace for all of us, we have a promise that God will treat those who belong to Jesus in the same way.
The Easter morning testimony from the Gospel of John has Mary Magdalene arriving in the dark at the tomb where Jesus was laid. She saw that the stone across the entrance had been rolled away, so she went to get Peter and John. The Disciples looked around the empty tomb and then went back to the Upper Room; Mary, however, stayed at the tomb crying. She happened to look in to see two angels dressed in white. The angels asked why she was crying, and she told them that she was looking for the body of Jesus. But God had raised Jesus from the dead as he had told them. Mary was the first one to meet the risen Jesus, and she hurried back to give her testimony to the rest of the disciples.
One of the first things that happens when someone decides to begin the process of becoming a minister is that they have to write their “call story”. The call story is the testimony of how a person understands that God is calling them out of their current life into a life dedicated to ministering to the people of God. Thirteen years ago, I wrote my call story for the first time. I submitted it to my pastor and to the District Superintendent. I had done a lot of work over the previous four or five years to notice and understand how God had slowly moved me to where I was at that time. How I had been living my life just fine, but God had placed people and opportunities in my life for service that continued to lead me ever closer to God.
The original Disciples have left us their call stories as well. We know how Peter, John and James were called to leave their nets and come fish for people. How Matthew was called away from his working for the Roman occupiers to work instead for his oppressed people. How Jesus saw Nathaniel under a fig tree and spoke to him of who he was at his deepest and most personal self. We have the recorded Gospels of Mark, Luke and Acts, Matthew and John, and the writings of Peter and Paul which all tell how it is that Jesus came into their lives and how nothing was ever the same again. We have the story in Acts of how the murderous Saul was on the road to Damascus to continue persecuting the followers of Jesus, but God intervened with an encounter with the risen Jesus that struck him blind and simultaneously opened his spiritual eyes.
In each of these cases, God had been at work in those who Jesus called to follow him, and in those who made a conscious choice to be part of the larger group that assembled around him. None of these people would have told you that they were anything special before meeting Jesus – but God knew that within each of them, and collectively through their sharing of gifts, that something new and transformational could be born, nurtured and given to a world in need. I find myself wondering this morning, how has God been preparing you to use your God-given gifts in our world?
The life and ministry of Jesus was certainly important, but God knew that in order for the teachings of Jesus to change the world into God’s kingdom, Jesus had to die a human death and to be raised from that death. As Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers, “…the last enemy to be destroyed is death….” God’s great act of Almighty love was to make the humanly impossible, possible. Nothing but God’s great and powerful love could give life where there was only death, bring joy where there was only sorrow, bring hope where there was only despair, make our salvation a reality.
The message of Easter morning is the cornerstone of Christian faith – without the Resurrection, we have nice stories about a good man in Palestine some 2000 years ago. But God transformed those stories of that good man, Jesus, into a powerful promise for all of us. For all who are baptized into the faith and who choose to follow the God of their understanding, can live in a way that testifies to how God is still alive and actively creating in our day. Actively creating new disciples who can share their testimonies about how they were lost, but God found them. How they were stymied by life, but God made a way. How they came to the grave expecting to find death and instead found new life and freedom from that which entombed them. Every time some pundit has pontificated that God is surely dead, good people have come forward to say how they were dead, but God brought them back to life. God is resurrecting lives every day and because of this we all can live in the world as Easter people. People who know that God’s Easter morning miracle provides our testimonies with two powerful and life-giving words…but God! Thanks be to God, amen!