Acts 5:27-32
“Witnesses”
April 28, 2019 – Second Sunday of Easter
Unless it’s in a courtroom, the word “witness” does not feel very positive these days. Our minds turn to young men in white shirts and neckties or to gentlemen in suitcoats knocking on doors and handing out religious tracts. In one of my favorite books, The River Why by David James Duncan, the protagonist tells us that his rude and homespun mother named the activity “these folk call Witnessing” as “Witlessing.” He says,
these inexplicable people make it their business to bombard unsuspecting citizens in the privacy of their homes with little comic books full of the most grandiose and depressing threats, prophecies and admonitions imaginable; and they paste all kinds of weird epigrams and doom prophecies on their cars, causing many an innocent motorist to drive to his death trying to read the blasted things; and a common edition of these bumper legends promises worse havoc, flatly warning that the drivers of these stickered cars could at any moment evaporate away to Heaven in a process called “Rapture,” showing no concern for the holocaust of traffic fatalities they would unavoidably leave behind![1]
Some of us grew up with, even grew up doing, some of that witless witnessing which Duncan describes, and, if you are like me, it’s left a bad taste in our mouths. We might agree with a fair amount of what those doorbell pushers and bumper sticker pasters believe, but I doubt I would garner much enthusiasm this morning just by encouraging you to go out “witnessing” sometime this week. Yet “witness” is a good biblical and Christian word. In fact, it’s one of the most cherished words in our history.
At the end of our text here in Acts 5, in verse 32, after giving the Sanhedrin the basic story we celebrated last week, that Jesus died on the Cross and was raised from the dead and lives to offer forgiveness for sins to any who will accept it, Peter says, “And we are witnesses of these things.”
As we heard in the Gospel of John this morning, they were in fact eye witnesses of “these things.” Thomas, the one apostle that had not seen Jesus risen and refused to believe until he did, finally did see Him. As we’ll read next week from John, Peter himself sat on a beach and ate fish and talked with the risen Lord. They had truly witnessed the events to which they were giving witness.
It wasn’t long, however, until the apostles’ witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus encountered opposition like we heard in the text today. As the high priest said in verse 28, the Jewish Sanhedrin had already told them to keep quiet and quit speaking the name of Jesus, quit telling their account of how He had died and how He had risen. That first time they were told to quit witnessing was back in Acts 4. Their reply in verse 20 of that chapter was “we cannot keep from speaking what we have seen and heard.”
Now as we find the apostles back in front of the high priest and the Sanhedrin, much has happened. As you can read just before this in chapter 5, the apostles had been arrested and spent almost a night in jail, until in verse 19 “the Lord opened the prison doors, brought them out, and said, ‘Go, stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message about this life.’”
Peter and the other apostles were not witless witnesses armed with poorly printed comic books threatening doom on sinners. They did not need to knock on doors because God Himself opened locked doors for them. Far from being unpopular and unwelcome figures on the streets of Jerusalem, people flocked to hear what they had to say. At that point they had every reason to be confident, even arrogant about their witnessing. And that might be the impression you get from their answer to the high priest.
For his part, the high priest is clearly frustrated and frightened. He thought they had dealt with these people when they told them to quit preaching in Jesus’ name. Then he thought they had settled the matter when they put them in prison. Now here they were again, free as can be, still delivering their message. As we hear in verse 28, the high priest is afraid they mean to put the blame for Jesus’ death on them, the religious authorities.
We might read it that way, that the Christian apostles were filled with antagonism toward those who were trying to hinder their witness. Peter’s courageous words in verse 29, “We must obey God rather than any human authority,” seem to ring with defiance and imply the foundation for all sorts of civil disobedience and challenge to corrupt authority. And so it may. Yet one of the great preachers of the first centuries of Christianity heard a different chord being struck in Peter’s words. Chrysostom said,
It was not with defiance that the apostles answered them, for they were teachers. And yet who, backed by an entire city and enjoying such grace, would not have spoken and uttered something big? But not these men. For they were not angered, but they pitied and wept over them and looked for a way to free them from their error and anger.[2]
Chrysostom was saying that the apostles had every right to be bold and defiant. Peter and the others were “on a roll,” as we might say. Everyone in Jerusalem wanted to hear them. Guards and prison doors could not lock them up. God Himself was clearly on their side. They could have challenged the high priest and his cronies and taken over the religious establishment in Jerusalem themselves. But they did not. Instead, as Chrysostom goes on to say, they had compassion for the those who opposed them and simply repeated to them the story they were already telling everyone else.
So in verses 30 and 31 we read Peter giving the whole Gospel, the whole message about Jesus, in a nutshell. God raised Jesus from the dead after He had been hung on a tree, that is, crucified on the Cross. And God has lifted the risen Jesus into heaven at His right hand where He sits as Leader and Savior and offers repentance and forgiveness of sins. That’s almost the whole thing, the whole Christian faith right there. Witnessing to that is what Peter means by obeying God rather than human beings. He’s not proposing a Christian revolution and government takeover. He’s simply saying that the message about Jesus is more important than and takes precedence over anything an earthly authority might have to say.
Chrysostom implies that insofar as the powers and governments of this world are in opposition to that truth about the saving power of Jesus, then they are more to be pitied than to be fought against. We might want to think about what this means for our own Christian witness in the midst of current society and politics. Despite what the so-called Moral Majority years ago or some Christians more recently may argue, a Christian takeover of American or any government is probably both impossible and not much like how Peter and the apostles approached such issues.
In fact, the very history of that biblical word for “witness,” teaches us that the Gospel message of Christ crucified and Christ risen, offering salvation to anyone who will receive it, has frequently gone much further in this world when Christians have suffered than when they have fought for their rights. In Greek, that word for “witnesses” in verse 32 is martures, “martyrs.” The early Christians came to call those who gave their lives for proclaiming their faith in Jesus simply “witnesses.” That’s what martyrs literally are. As I said, it’s one of our holiest and most beautiful Christian words.
Peter and his companions were not quite yet what we call martyrs, although it would not be long. Peter would be crucified too, but in Rome, upside down, because he did not feel worthy to die in the same posture as his Lord. James would be beheaded at home there in Judea. According to fairly credible church history, Thomas, whom we heard about this morning, would go off to witness and be a martyr in India.
The early church father Tertullian said that, “The blood of the martyrs [those witnesses] is the seed of the church.” Sacrificial and suffering witness for Jesus is what initially spread the good news of Jesus around the world. Believers willing to risk everything is still often a method by which our Lord grows His church. Just talk to our Christian friends in China or India or Colombia or any number of places where it has not been comfortable but instead dangerous to talk about Jesus.
That’s not to say we cannot witness and that Jesus is not at work where the risk and the cost are less. Our own country went through two “Great Awakenings” when Jesus was preached and great numbers of people came to Jesus in the relative safety of America’s religious freedom. In our book of the month you can read that, though Louis Zamperini was in a Japanese prison camp in World War II, it was safely back home at a Billy Graham crusade that he heard the Gospel and accepted Christ.
Moreover, there is no advantage for yourself or for the cause of Christ by being deliberately obnoxious or offensive in an attempt to witness. Knocking on a door to tell someone they are headed for hell or condemning your co-workers’ immorality may get you persecuted, but it’s not necessarily good witness even if you do it in the name of Jesus.
A Christian public school teacher who gets fired because he deliberately tries to evangelize students might seem like he’s doing what Peter said, obeying God rather than human authority. But such actions in our place and time are more likely to hurt the cause of witnessing to Jesus than to help it. We must not be witless witnesses trampling on everyone’s toes and then declaring ourselves “martyrs” when we suffer for our arrogant and offensive ways. That’s neither what Peter meant nor genuine testimony for Christ.
The reason authentic suffering for Christ is good witness is that it is beautiful. There is something humanly attractive about a commitment and faithfulness that is willing to suffer for truth, especially the beautiful truth that God Himself in Christ has suffered, died and risen to offer us forgiveness for sin. Let’s not forget it as we confront the evil and corrupt powers and society around us. Peter concluded his message about Jesus in verse 31 by saying Jesus came “to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”
That’s the point, to offer God’s grace, God’s love and forgiveness, to a world desperately in need of it. After that verse we love to share in witness so much, John 3:16, John 3:17 says, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” Let’s never forget that Christian witness is witness to saving grace, not condemning judgment.
Of course, many people aren’t ready to hear about forgiveness and grace until they understand their sinfulness. And we must be ready to speak the truth, just as the apostles did, about what is truly good news about Jesus and what is not. We may need to make it clear to those around us that some actions done by or opinions held by fellow Christians may represent who our Savior is poorly or not at all.
If we want to witness to Jesus who died and rose again to give forgiveness and new life to all people, we cannot support and must even speak against policies and government that take away life and hurt people. In the name of Jesus, Christians will be witnesses to our Lord’s love for children, both already born and unborn. We will decry both killing them and putting them in cages. We will want them to be safe at school and to have good medical care. Witnesses for Jesus will want to be like Him when it comes to children, when it comes to anyone, wherever they come from, whatever their status in this world’s eyes. Our aim, like Peter’s and the apostles, is not condemnation, but compassion.
So in our witness to friends and neighbors and to the world we will most often, like the apostles, want to tread more on the side of suffering harm than inflicting it. We will do our best to obey human law rather than breaking it, only offending when it would mean being quiet about the Savior we serve. And if we must stand against an authority in order to be faithful to Jesus, we will accept the consequences and, like all the witness/martyrs before us, count it as God’s grace to us in Christ our Lord.
In all our attempts to witness, all sometimes weak or half-hearted words for Jesus, let us remember how Peter in verse 32 ends his own declaration that he and the apostles were “witnesses of these things.” He says, “and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” When we talk about Jesus, when we share Christ, we are never alone. The Holy Spirit is there witnessing with us. It was the Holy Spirit that filled the apostles with courage, and who still fills those who are faithful to the Lord.
Some of you are arranging an opportunity to watch an opera about Christian martyrs during the French revolution. In the midst of that society’s fight against tyranny and corrupt government, even as they celebrated “liberty, fraternity, and equality” and tried to establish democracy, many of them forgot and turned against their faith as Christians. They persecuted those who kept saying their prayers and following Jesus.
Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogue of the Carmelites” is the story of French nuns who were in 1792 ordered by the revolutionary government to disband their convent. At the same time the rich and elite are also being persecuted, with crowds stopping carriages and attacking aristocrats. A young rich woman named Blanche decides to take refuge in the convent, but finds it challenging.
At the end of the second act of the opera, the government seizes their convent and force the nuns to remove their habits and dress in ordinary clothes. The nuns take a vote to remain faithful however they are dressed, serving and saying their prayers, and accepting death. Blanche, who has not yet fully pledged herself to the life of a nun runs away.
Then in 1794, the revolutionary government arrests those nuns who chose to obey God rather than human authority. They are led away singing together, to the guillotine. You hear their voices dying away as one by one they each die. Then, at the last minute, Blanche reappears and goes to the guillotine like her sisters, singing a different song, the one sung by postulants, bu those newly professing vows to a religious order. She sings, “Veni Creator Spiritus,” “Come Holy Spirit.” Blanche had ran away before her vows were taken, but with the Holy Spirit’s help she came back to complete her commitment and fully dedicate her life to God, to be a witness, a martyr.
I pray that God is not calling many, if any of us, to be martyrs for Jesus. But I do believe He is calling all of us to be witnesses, to learn well and to tell well that story of Jesus who died and rose again. Like Peter it’s not that we are to try to witness, but that we are witnesses. We’ve felt and experienced the life and forgiveness of Jesus Christ in our own lives. How can we not speak about what we have seen and heard? May we not run away from that task, but fully dedicate ourselves to it, with the Holy Spirit as our help and guide.
Amen.
Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2019 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj
[1] The River Why (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1983), p. 40f.
[2] Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament vol. V, Acts (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), p. 66.