The live lilies and flowers have long since departed. Rotten forgotten dyed eggs have not assaulted our noses. But the Easter banners are still flying from the rafters and the lily spray still clings to the cross. Easter was five weeks ago. What gives?
Easter is not a single day that if you blink you miss it. Easter is a season. The Jewish community out of which the early church came observed the Festival of Weeks fifty days after Passover. This marked the end of the wheat harvest as well as commemorating the giving of the Law. It was during the Festival of Weeks celebration that the Holy Spirit filled the gathered apostles in Jerusalem and launched the church. We will remember that occasion in two weeks.
Jesus was crucified by the Roman authorities at the beginning of Passover. During the fifty day period that followed, the apostles encountered the risen Christ several times but for the most part remained out of sight. According to Luke, Jesus was taken up into heaven on the fortieth day after his resurrection. That would be this coming Thursday. We will think a bit more about that next week.
So the season of Easter runs from the day of Jesus’ resurrection to the Day of Pentecost. Throughout this time we remember the power of his resurrection for our lives, the life of the church, and the life of world.
The resurrection of Christ and the birth of the church marked a change in worship. The Jewish tradition had always followed the wording of the Law, which reflected the process of creation. Six days God worked at creating. And on the seventh God rested. So creation itself – primarily human creation – should also rest on the seventh day and do no work. We know the seventh day as Saturday. Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week, our Sunday, was a new and decisive act of creation by God. So the Christian Sabbath, or as the New Testament Church called it, the Lord’s Day, was celebrated on Sunday.
What that all means is that every Sunday is a little Easter, regardless of what else is going on in the church calendar. We don’t make a big deal of it, but if we didn’t have Christ’s resurrection, we wouldn’t have the Christian faith, the church, or a day of rest as we know it.
Easter is a transformative event. It changed everything. The Book of Acts is the story of the initial extension of the church from a closed-off room in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The Book of Acts may run out at the end of chapter 28, but it doesn’t really end. It is a lot like the season finale of dramatic series. Yes, it ends, but there are a number of loose ends that prepare us for the next season.
If Acts is season one of the church, then what season are we in? I have no idea. It is like one of the long running soap operas on television that has gone through countless story lines and generations of characters. Whatever season the church is in, we are in that season. It’s our turn to be the church.
Had we been the writers of the initial church script, we would never have foreseen the church where it is today. The plot line for the church has had more twists and turns and knots and snarls than a skein of yarn mauled by a kitten. How many times has the life of the church been like the ending of a television show I watched the other night and the only thing I could say after seeing the final scene was, “I didn’t see that coming.”
Much of scripture lays the ground for that kind of reaction. Even when we dig deep into our faith and remind ourselves, “God is in charge,” we still don’t see coming many of the things that happen. Take today’s readings for instance.
How about the response that arises to the healing of the long-suffering, chronically ill man who had been physically unable to reach the healing waters in time whenever they were stirred up? The reaction of the religious authorities is not one of praise for the healing, but anger that the man carried his mat on the Sabbath. That’s what we find when we read beyond where the reading ended. I suspect that in his amazement at being healed, the man didn’t take time to neatly roll up his mat, but grabbed it hastily and trotted off. It probably wasn’t all that heavy, just awkward.
Nevertheless he was accused of doing work because he was toting his bedroll. Eventually the authorities found out that Jesus had told him to carry his mat and that meant to them that Jesus was violating the Sabbath rules. Jesus responded that he was simply doing his Father’s work – God’s work. That statement didn’t calm the leaders; it upset them all the more. Keeping strict rein on the rules for the Sabbath was more important than recognizing the gracious healing activity of God. That the healing happened on the Sabbath was a foretaste of greater healing to come.
When we turn to the brief account in the Acts reading, we find that it starts with a radical plot shift. Paul had added Timothy to his team and was making the circuit of churches in the province of Asia – modern day southwestern Turkey. The ministry was going well. He and his companions “instructed Gentile believers to keep the regulations put in place by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and every day their numbers flourished” (Acts 16:4-5).
Then out of the blue – or rather the dark of night – Paul’s itinerary gets changed. He and his friends don’t have a clue what was going to happen, but they proceed on faith. They must have arrived in Philippi mid-week. They got settled in, and since Paul was an itinerant tent-maker, he must have explored what his work opportunities were. Come the morning of the Sabbath, he and his companions decided to go outside the walls of the city in order to find a quiet place to reflect on the risen Christ, sing psalms, and pray.
Along the banks of the local stream, in what we might envision as a kind of park area, he meets the God-worshiper Lydia and her friends. The ever-garrulous Paul quickly started talking to her about the risen Lord Jesus. The Spirit enabled her to joyfully receive the gospel, be baptized, and become a support and hostess for Paul and his band of evangelists.
For Paul, the known spiritual disciplines and sources of divine inspiration led to the unknown. By following the known script they were led to encounters and experiences, and new scripts began to write themselves.
Richard M. Landers writes,
Long before any organized church structure took shape, believers gathered and God's Spirit moved them, often taking them far from the established patterns of their own religious life. Macedonia represents a missionary frontier, and crossing over that threshold is a symbolic and real gesture in support of the gospel's expansive character. Paul and his companions at this point appear stalled and in search of divine guidance, and so this crossover constitutes a tremendous leap of faith.(1)When the church grows and matures, it is always first led out of its comfort zone. The unknown of Macedonia led to the establishing of church communities in Philippi and Corinth. Paul even wound up in the great cosmopolitan regional capital of Athens, where he eventually debated some of the leading philosophers of the day.
Authentic mission is always a response to a need within the community, not simply the missionary’s need to proclaim. These brief verses can provide individuals and congregations with examples of innovative ministry. And the key is that what makes the ministry detour is prayer and worship.
Yes, prayer is powerful when two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name. The Sleeve Tuggers prayer group started a number of years before we finalized plans to erect this building and move into it. Prayer warriors like John and Fran Hamlin, Betty Armstrong Jenkins, Cy Whitfield, and others prayed us through the challenges that awaited us.
As we head for the end of second decade of the 21st century and the challenges of being faithful in times very different from those we grew comfortable with decades ago, we need concerted praying and worshiping. Paul and companions prayed and worshiped in order to receive God’s call to the ministry. God invites us to pray and worship for the ministry that awaits us to engage the people who need the gospel that Presbyterian Christians can graciously offer, as Paul offered it to Lydia and friends. It is through praying and worshiping that God will lead us to the new chapters of faithfulness that lay ahead of us, for us to be involved in and to lay the groundwork for those who will come after us.
If you are like me, when you are traveling, detours are a nuisance and a delay. Yet we have seen wonderful things while detouring. Detours can be Godsends, purposeful, challenging and rewarding. Through prayer and worship, where will God detour our individual and collective lives? We will have to pray and worship to find out. Maybe we need sleeve-tugging prayer groups meeting every day of the week, morning, noon, and night, on campus and in the community.
May God send us on a Spirit-led detour. And may it be a blessing for all involved.
(1) Richard M. Landers, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) Year C, vol. 2, 477.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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