Acts 2:1-22
For six and a half years now I have been living in Rabat and taking trips back to the US. I go back once and sometimes twice a year. In the beginning when I went back it was very strange. I was still adjusting to the culture here and when I went back I had to readjust to the US culture. But now I have made an adjustment of sorts and it seems less strange. I live here in Rabat with one reality and step across the ocean, in a painful, jammed-into-my-seat plane trip, into a second reality. The two realities are quite different but they are both very real to me.
Both realities have a lot I like and dislike in them. You can ask me sometime what I dislike, for now let me tell you what I like.
I tell people in the US about the wonderful tajines and couscouses we enjoy here. I tell them about the desert trip I took. I tell them about the medina in Fes. I tell them about the Village of Hope and Children’s Haven and the work the Easley’s are doing in Al Hoceima. I tell them about the association of churches and the charitable projects we are getting involved in, like Ra’fah House. I tell them about the delight in being in an international community. I tell them about the wonderful people in our church.
And when I come back and am asked how it was in the US, I tell how nice it was to see the color green in forests and fields and lawns. I tell about looking out the window of my father’s house and seeing deer grazing and flocks of wild turkeys. I tell about how easy it is to go shopping and find what you want in one store. I tell about being with my father and daughters and their husbands and other family and friends.
I tell about sitting with Ann and my father on the dock of Cape May in southern New Jersey, eating oysters and a lobster sandwich and watching fishing boats in the harbor. I tell about a Memorial Day supper with Ann’s family and then a second one the next day with my sister and her daughter. I tell about delicious evening meals with friends. I tell about friends and family getting interested in coming over to Morocco to work and live.
There is a lot to enjoy in the world and I think that has always been the case. The modern world is certainly more comfortable and safer than it used to be. Modern plumbing is not to be despised. The availability of food is greater now than it used to be. The availability of wonderful, sensual food has never been greater. But two thousand years ago there was still a lot to enjoy in the world and with less pollution and population, there are many ways in which the world must have been much more enjoyable than it is today.
Peter traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem. When he had been away from Galilee for a period of time, what did he miss? What did he do when he went back to his home town?
One way of thinking about this is to consider where the disciples went after Jesus resurrected and appeared to them in Jerusalem. Where did they go? They headed back to Galilee and what did they do there? They went fishing.
There is not much in the world that is more relaxing that fishing on a lake, laying back in the boat looking at the clouds and the trees around the lake. When I was growing up I used to go fishing with my friend’s family. I had a long bamboo pole with a fishing line and red and white bobber at the end. These days I would not mind fishing with just a weight at the end of the line but no hook. No need to be distracted by actually catching a fish.
There is a bumper sticker I have seen on cars in the US that says this:
A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work.
To prove that this is not a modern delight, a Babylonian proverb said:
The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.
If you could have talked with Peter in Jerusalem, I think he would have told you about how beautiful the Sea of Galilee was and how wonderful the air smelled. He would have told you about the taste of a fish cooked on the shore just after being caught. He would have told you about the pleasure of being in solitude, away from the noise of Jerusalem, walking along the lake in the early morning when it seemed he was the only one in the world at that moment.
It helps me to be reminded of this side of Peter. The Bible has a specific focus so we see Peter in ministry but we don’t see much of him on days off, days relaxing, days back in Galilee with his family. He had a wife and I assume, children. Human nature has not changed over the years and Peter, just like me, had a life he enjoyed and looked forward to. Just like me, there were days Peter must have longed to be out on the lake fishing, away from all the pressures and responsibilities that were his.
It helps me to be reminded of this because when I see the boldness of Peter or of Paul, I am intimidated. I view them as spiritual giants so much more capable of living a Christian life than I am. Peter and Paul stepped into confrontational situations and were so confident and so bold. Peter and Paul had things they enjoyed, foods they loved eating, friends they loved hanging around with, locations they loved to visit. They, like me, had lots of things in this world they enjoyed but it seems to me that they had looked at the world and concluded it offered them nothing that was truly satisfying and so were single-minded in their pursuit of obedience to Jesus.
Look at Peter in today’s text. Peter was arrested by the same people who arrested Jesus. When he saw them coming toward him, was he reminded of the night Jesus was arrested? When he saw them coming, did he say, “Uh oh, I remember this.” When he saw them coming, did he resolve not to do what he did last time?
He was put in jail, along with John, just a few months after Jesus had been arrested, put on trial and then executed. When Peter was in jail, did he talk with John about whether or not they would also face execution? How could this not have entered their minds?
Tomorrow they would face the Sanhedrin. These were trained, educated, skilled men. Who were they to stand up to the Sanhedrin? Jesus had stood up to the Sanhedrin and been executed. How would they do?
There was a lot of room for anxiety and yet, there is not a hint of intimidation on the part of Peter and John when they were questioned, challenged and threatened.
They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is
”‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone.’
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
Peter did not back down. For most of us, when we speak, we shade the truth of what we say to fit the audience. If I am frustrated with Joe, I can speak out at a meeting and tell exactly why I am frustrated. But then suppose a friend of Joe hears I said something about him at the meeting and calls me to ask what it was I said. I will tend to shade the truth and soften what it was I said. This is our nature.
But Peter did not do this. What he said to the people in the Temple court he said before the Jewish leaders.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified
This was quite an accusation. We tend to hear Christ as the second name of Jesus but Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. For centuries Jews had been awaiting the Messiah who would come from God and now Peter named Jesus as the Messiah whom they had crucified. This was a tremendous accusation. They had killed the promised Messiah!
What allowed Peter to be so bold? What allowed Paul to be so bold, taking the gospel into city after city even though he was continually kicked out of town and physically abused?
Don’t you think Paul must have spent the last night before walking into yet another town, sitting out under the stars gazing at the coals of the fire wondering whether he would be beaten yet again?
I think Peter and Paul had taken a long look and concluded that this world no longer had what it was they most longed for and so in obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit, they moved boldly forward into confrontational situations.
Paul wrote in Philippians 3:7-14
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
This part of Paul’s letter to the Philippians has long attracted me. I want to forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead, but I am so distracted by what the world around me offers.
If I were Paul, sitting by the fire the night before going into yet another city, I would think of all the suffering I had already endured and call it quits. Time to go back to Antioch. They like me there. I can train new people to go out. I have suffered enough.
What enabled Paul and what enabled Peter to be so bold, to press on despite the opposition, despite the persecution, despite the suffering they endured?
There are three parts to their boldness: an experience, a decision and a filling.
First the experience. Both Peter and Paul had an intense experience with Jesus. Peter had three years with Jesus in which he made some progress in his understanding of Jesus, but it was after Jesus resurrected that Peter really met Jesus and the intensity of this experience carried him forward as a new man. Paul was heading to Damascus to persecute followers of Jesus when Jesus met him in the brilliance of the noonday sun.
We cannot be bold for Jesus without having an experience of Jesus. Thirty-five years ago I was an exchange student in Germany and visited East Berlin. Our group went to a church in East Berlin and split up to have lunch with the members of that church. I went to have lunch with a young married couple and was impressed with their faith in Christ. Because of their church membership, they were denied many state benefits and I remember thinking that the church I knew was not worth sacrificing for. This couple sacrificed because they had an experience with Christ worth sacrificing for.
It was the following year that I discovered the Christ they had experienced and I began my Christian life.
Boldness begins with a strong experience of Jesus.
But then, even with a strong experience of Jesus, they had to make decisions.
Peter had a first chance to be bold in following Jesus and he failed. The night Jesus was arrested he boldly proclaimed:
“Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
And then Peter denied three times that he knew Jesus.
Peter had been the boldest of Jesus’ followers and had failed miserably. He had three decisions to make, should he stand by Jesus or deny knowing him, and three times he chose wrongly.
But then the resurrected Jesus appeared to him and restored him to leadership. A new, humble Peter arose and he led with a new boldness. The first Peter had led with a brash boldness. The second Peter led with a humble boldness.
What is the difference between brash boldness and humble boldness? Brash boldness says I can do anything because I am strong, determined, and talented. Humble boldness realizes that human strength can only take me so far and that I need to depend humbly on God for his strength.
Peter had choices to make the first time around and failed. The second time around he made choices that enabled him to follow Jesus into suffering and persecution. When he saw the captain of the temple guard coming, he did not run away. When he sat in jail he did not give in to fear. When he stood before the Sanhedrin, he did not mutter and stammer. He did not shade the truth of what he had to say. When they threatened him, he did not back down.
Being determined to follow Christ whatever the consequences and knowing that I am not strong enough in myself to do that and so must depend on God is the way we are able to be bold.
We have to have a strong experience of Jesus. We need to make choices to follow Jesus regardless of the consequences. And when we follow Jesus and face a difficult situation, the Holy Spirit will enable us to speak with boldness.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them:
Peter astonished the educated, elite Sanhedrin because he spoke with the wisdom and eloquence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus had told his disciples as recorded in Luke 12:11
“When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
To be bold for Jesus, experience Jesus, determine to choose Jesus in difficult circumstances and then trust that the Holy Spirit will empower you when it comes time to defend yourself.
I believe what I have said is true but I also have doubt that I would be able to be so bold as Peter and Paul. I have had an experience with Jesus and long for a deeper, more intense experience with him. I make an effort to choose to follow Jesus but am anxious that when the moment of crisis comes I will sidestep rather than face the moment head on.
And I come back again to my problem which is that while I have one mind to follow Jesus, I have a second mind to love what I see in the world. And so I want to introduce one more element in this matter of boldness. The sermon title is Turning your back on the world and enjoying the pizza.
When I say that Peter and Paul looked at the world and determined that what it offered could not satisfy them, I do not mean to say that they did not see in the world things they could enjoy. I talked a bit about this with what Peter might have loved in this world and I believe it is proper for us to love things in this world.
Christians who look to heaven and ignore the pleasures of the world have a mean, stingy Christianity. You may have known people like this in your church experiences. It is true that we are to have one foot in heaven and we need to make choices that reflect our heavenly destination. But it is also true that our other foot is to be planted firmly in the mud. We are meant to enjoy and be thankful for our earthly pleasures.
Those who live only for earthly pleasures are foolish. These will fade away and then what will you have? This is the message of Ecclesiastes. When we desire the things of this world we will always eventually be disappointed because the things of this world will not last and cannot satisfy the longings we have deep within us. But on the other hand, to strain for heaven without being appreciative and thankful for the things of earth is to be ungrateful which leads to a hardness of spirit.
We are to love the things of this world and enjoy them in the moment without desiring them in the future. We are to turn our back on the world, realizing that the things of the world will never satisfy and then sit down with friends to enjoy a good pizza. This is the trick. This is the challenge for us in our spirituality.
I believe we will be facing in the future opportunities to stand with Jesus against opposition. I talked a couple weeks ago about the need to be pure in order to be able to participate with Jesus in the growth of his church. I encourage you to work at your own purity and to encourage those around you to seek purity in their lives. We, as a church, need to be made pure.
We need to be pure and we need to be bold because I believe growth is coming. But growth rarely comes without pain and opposition. When you face opposition, hold on to the example of Peter. Make sure you are deepening your experience with Jesus. Do not be satisfied with how much of Jesus you know. Seek him in a deeper and more intimate way. Be grateful to God for all the good things you experience in this life. Enjoy the pleasures of this world to their fullness but do not desire them for the future. Work and pray so that what you desire is what only God can offer you. Don’t give up on this.
And then when you come to that moment where you have to choose Jesus, lean on God for strength and be confident that the Holy Spirit will be with you, protecting you, preserving your faith, helping you to make a defense for what you believe.
Where do you need correction this morning? Do you need an experience with Jesus? Then come to Jesus, pray for a deeper experience with him. Are you lusting after the things the world has to offer? Then accept the gift of understanding that those things will never and can never be truly satisfying. Are you so focused on your heavenly destination that you have forgotten to enjoy the pleasures of earth? Then take time this week to enjoy a good meal with friends. Be grateful for the wonderful provision of God.
Later this morning Melissa Russon will be baptized in the ocean. This is a wonderful experience of the church. Her baptism is an acknowledgment that she has had an experience with Jesus, she has set her mind and heart in a pursuit of her heavenly existence and her baptism will be held in the midst of the beauty of the ocean and beach and with the delights of good food and family and friends. Her experience, her decision and the delights of ocean, food and family and friends are all an important part of this sacrament of the church.
