“A Vacancy Filled” (Acts 1:15-26)

A couple of weeks ago I was in conversation with a friend who is a former Commander in the Canadian Navy. At some point we got onto the topic of leadership in the church and he made the comment, “Leadership is critical.” My immediate reply to him was, “No, leadership is everything.” Now don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t advocating elitism or clericalism in the church. They are both poisonous. What I was seeking to say is that almost always it is the leader who is most influential in setting the tone and direction of the whole organization.

In his book Good to Great, management expert Jim Collins’ research into successful major U.S. corporations led him to the conclusion that the principal factor in their advancement was humble, focused leadership from the top. Ironically, it seems to me that Collins might have come to the same conclusion if he had studied the Bible and not the growth charts of successful American businesses. (However, I admit that his book probably would not have been the best seller that it was if he had!) Think of Moses, for example, the towering leader of the Old Testament, whose imprint remains on the Jewish people (and ourselves) to this day. How does the Bible describe him? “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3).

It should come as no surprise, then, that a number of passages in the New Testament are devoted to the subject of leadership in the church. Allow me to share a few of them with you:

•   Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful in marriage, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach… (1 Timothy 3:1-2)

•   Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

•   [An overseer] must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. (Titus 1:8-9)

•   To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. (1 Peter 5:1-3)

•   Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you. (Hebrews 13:17)

In this morning’s reading from Acts we are with Jesus’ followers just days after his ascension. And what do we find them doing? Looking for a new leader to replace Judas Iscariot. I believe it is significant that they saw as their very first priority the necessity of filling this gap in their leadership—and they didn’t waste any time in doing it. I also believe that there are some important principles we can draw from their experience about leadership in the church.

Leaders are not above criticism

The first lesson I glean from this passage seems fairly obvious. It is that leaders in the church are not above criticism. Peter speaks fairly, even fondly perhaps, of Judas Iscariot as “one of our number”, one who “shared in our ministry”. Yet he does not make any attempt to cover up Judas’ act of deceit and betrayal, turning Jesus over into the hands of his persecutors. Nor do the gospel writers make any effort to gloss over Peter’s own cowardly denial of Jesus on the eve of his crucifixion or James’ and John’s unseemly wrangling over who should sit at Jesus’ right and left in his kingdom. No, the New Testament is very clear that these men whom the church honours as apostles are human beings, sinners like the rest of us. And we find the same is true in the Old Testament a well. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the patriarchs of the Israelite nation, Moses its mighty liberator and giver of the Law, David and Solomon its greatest kings, are all depicted not only with their tremendous strengths but also with their weaknesses and shortcomings, some of them truly grievous—“warts and all” as the expression goes.

One of the clearest examples is the apostle Paul, who at a relatively early point in his ministry calls himself “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God”. At a later point he confesses to being “less than the least of all God’s people”. Then finally, as his ministry and his life are nearing a close, he describes himself (in the colourful words of The Message) as “Public Sinner Number One” (1 Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 1:15).

We do the church and we do the church’s mission a terrible disservice when we place our leaders on a pedestal beyond reproach. Now I am not encouraging the petty passive-aggressive, destructive criticism that can be poisonous in any community. That is another issue entirely. What I am talking about is genuinely caring enough for our leaders to be honest with them.

Bill Hybels is the founding pastor of Willow Creek Church in suburban Chicago. It is one of the United States’ largest megachurches, with a weekly attendance of more than 20,000. He tells the story of how, one evening after putting his children to bed, he zipped down to the church for just a few moments and parked his car between the auditorium and the parking lot. In his mailbox the next morning he found a note from one of his staff, which read, “Bill, a small thing, but Tuesday night … you parked at the side of the lobby, in the no-parking area… We try hard not to allow people, even workers, to park anywhere other than the parking lots. I would appreciate your cooperation too.” Hybels’ reflection on the incident was this: “His stock went up in my book, because he had the courage to write me about what could be a little slippage in my character. Because you know what I thought as I drove up here? I thought, I shouldn't park illegally there, but I mean, I am the pastor. Which translates: ‘I’m an exception.’ ” He went on to comment, “If you people allow me to take three steps down the road of saying that I’m an exception to the rules, I am in big trouble. I am not the exception.”[1]

Leaders are not above criticism. They need correction as much as anyone else, but make sure it is done in a spirit of gentleness and humility, as the Bible instructs (Galatians 6:1), and in love. How grateful I am to those along my way who have cared enough for me and for the church to take me aside and steer me (sometimes painfully) back onto the track!

Leaders must know Christ

The second principle about leadership in the church that I glean from this passage—and this may seem like a no-brainer—is that those who are chosen to exercise it should have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. For the apostles it was essential that the candidate to make up their number be one who had accompanied them “the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among [them], beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up”. Obviously that qualification ended with the first generation of the church. But I believe that by extension our leaders in the church need to be men and women who are engaged in an ongoing walk with Christ, who are being transformed by the love of Christ. Not that they are perfect. As we have seen, even the apostles weren’t perfect. But that they are living in a relationship with Jesus and actively yielding themselves to him as their Lord and Master.

It is very easy to be swayed by eloquent speech, dashing good looks, a brilliant academic record, success in the business world or some other external attraction. But we must remember that God looks on the heart. Think of David and his seven strapping brothers. From all outward appearances he seemed the least likely candidate to lead God’s people. Yet it was he who proved to be the man after God’s own heart.

In my own experience I think of a man who was initially refused for ordination in my denomination because of a severe physical disability. Yet I know that in the course of his ministry God used him to touch deeply the lives of many. I remember going far out to the edge of the city to hear him one Sunday morning in one of the little churches where he served. It was nearly fifty years ago and I can still vividly remember the sermon—one of the most powerful and moving expositions of justification by faith I have ever heard. His physical disability may have made him an unlikely candidate for leadership in the church. Yet his experience of Jesus Christ made him eminently qualified.

Now I am not saying that that is the only requirement for leadership in the church. Read Acts 6 or 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1 or 1 Peter 5 and you will see that there are many more. But beneath them all there needs to be that foundation of an active, living, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Leaders are called by God

Following along the same line from that is that leaders in the church need to be called by God. Not every Christian is a leader for a whole variety of reasons. The New Testament lists all kinds of ways in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit can be used to build the church and to carry forward the mission of Christ—prophecy, teaching, healing, helping, guidance, tongues, serving, encouraging, giving, caring, administration, to name a few. Not all of them involve leadership. But each of them plays an irreplaceable part in making the church the living, healing body of Christ in the world.

So how did those first followers of Jesus make sure that the one they were identifying to fill Judas’ place was genuinely God’s choice? Well, to begin with they did the obvious thing: they prayed. They asked God for guidance to select the right person for the job. Then they did something that many people would say was foolhardy. They cast lots. Now I haven’t been around All Nations to know how you choose your leaders. But I’m fairly certain it isn’t by casting lots. And I’m not about to suggest that you initiate the practice.[2] (Although I do think that in the case of our neighbours to the south it might be a far less painful procedure than what they are going through now to find a president!)

But let me ask, why cast lots? Why not vote? In response, think of it this way: Both candidates were equally qualified for the ministry. They both met all the criteria, and I can only imagine that both were excellent men. Casting lots in their case was not an act of naivety or desperation. Rather, it was a way of giving the final say to God. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord,” says the book of Proverbs (16:33). And the apostles were determined to give their decision-making over to the Lord, to make sure that the person filling this key position in the church really was God’s choice and not just theirs. It was a way of giving God the final say. And it’s not that Justus didn’t go on to serve the Lord. Tradition has it that he became the first bishop in what is now the Arab Palestinian village of Bayt Jibrin, and later became one of the church’s early martyrs.

Looking at this church for just a moment, I am so grateful, as I’m sure you are, for the leaders that God has given us here—women and men in whose lives the presence of Jesus is clearly evident. And I pray that we will all do our part to stand alongside them and to continue that tradition of leadership, that together we may be faithful and effective in carrying forward Christ’s mission in the world.

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[1]        Bill Hybels, “The Pastor Is Not an Exception”, Preaching Today, October 1997 http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/1997/october/4793.html

[2]        After the service I was informed that this is how a decision is made at this church if there are two qualified candidates for an office!

“Left Behind” (Acts 1:1-11)

I wonder how many of you may have gone to see the film The Martian when it was playing in theatres last fall. It stars Matt Damon as Mark Watney, a botanist who is a member of a team of astronauts exploring Mars. Early in the story an emergency arises and the crew suddenly has to abandon the planet, with the result that Watney gets left behind. Without giving anything away, much of the remainder of the film is spent with him learning to survive in a hostile environment, while mission control and the rest of the team desperately search for ways to rescue him.

As we think about Jesus’ ascension this morning, I am wondering if that film might not have some parallels with how the disciples must have felt as Jesus departed from them for what they knew was the last time. Forty days had elapsed since the angels had stood at Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb with the message, “He is not here; he has risen!” Over that time Jesus had met with them in numerous places and on numerous occasions—outside the empty tomb, in the upper room, along the road to Emmaus, and on the shores of Lake Galilee. And Paul tells us of a further occasion not recorded in the gospels, when Jesus appeared to a crowd of more than five hundred people. They must have been exciting times. For myself, I know that I never tire of reading those last chapters of the gospels that recount Jesus’ meetings with his followers after the resurrection.

Now, however, they would not be seeing Jesus again. What must have been passing through their minds? What would happen next? How were they going to manage on their own, without Jesus? I can only imagine the eerie silence that must have descended on them, as they stood looking at one another with Jesus no longer in their midst.

Power

Unlike Mark Watney the astronaut, however, who was left entirely alone in a vast and lifeless terrain, Jesus was not leaving his followers to themselves. For sure, they would no longer enjoy his physical presence. Yet they would not be alone. Twice in this morning’s verses Jesus speaks with them about the Holy Spirit: “John baptized with water, but … you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”

It seems to me that there were at least two truths that Jesus was seeking to get across to the disciples about the Holy Spirit as he spoke with them. First, he told them that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now I know that that phrase, “baptized with the Holy Spirit”, has brought a great deal of controversy into the church over the past century or so. It has led to congregations and entire denominations splitting apart. To my mind that doesn’t mean that we should just avoid the topic in order to avoid controversy. Quite the opposite: These are the words of Jesus. They are the words of life. We need to study them, to understand them, to appropriate them for ourselves. So let me ask, what did Jesus mean when he spoke about being baptized with the Holy Spirit?

In our western, Reformed tradition, when we hear the word “baptism”, we are more likely than not to think of a little baby being brought to the front of the church and being sprinkled with water. We call it baptism by affusion, as opposed to baptism by immersion, as practised in some other traditions. Now I am not arguing against this practice. In fact I believe it based on good biblical, historical and pastoral warrant. However, I don’t believe we should have it in mind when we read Jesus’ words about being baptized with the Holy Spirit. The truth is that the verb baptizo in the New Testament, from which our word “baptize” is derived, really means to plunge, to sink, to drench, to overwhelm. It is derived from the verb bapto, which means to dip something into dye. We find it in the book of Revelation, used in the depiction of Jesus as the great rider of the white horse, whose robe, we are told is dipped in blood (Revelation 19:13). So what does it mean, then, to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?

Quite simply, I believe it means to be drenched with the Holy Spirit, to allow his presence to seep into every area of our lives. Unlike the sacrament of baptism, I do not believe that this is an instantaneous event but a lifelong process, as we learn to yield ourselves more and more fully to Jesus and to the power of the Holy Spirit to transform and renew us—and that brings us to Jesus’ second words about the Holy Spirit: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”

I probably don’t have to tell you that the word for “power” in the New Testament is dunamis, from which we derive our English words “dynamic”, “dynamo” and “dynamite”. I may be way off the mark in saying this, but I prefer to think of the Holy Spirit’s power as more frequently like a dynamo than dynamite. Yes, there are undoubtedly those occasional bursts of power, when God reveals himself to us in new and sometimes life-altering ways. (And thank God for those experiences!) Yet by and large, I think it is true to say that the Holy Spirit works as a steady and ongoing presence, increasingly making Jesus known to us and enabling us to follow more faithfully in his steps as we yield ourselves more fully to him.

Purpose

As he left them, Jesus told his followers not only about the power of the Holy Spirit, but also about his purpose. I have said that Jesus has bestowed the Holy Spirit on us so that we might know his daily presence with us and in us—and that in itself is a wonderful gift. But there is more to it than that. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us not just so that we can have warm, personal feelings inside—our own private nirvanas. The Holy Spirit has come in order that we may carry forward Christ’s mission in the world. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,” said Jesus. But then he went on (and here comes the scary part!), “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I wonder if there is anything that strikes more fear into the heart of Christians than the “e” word: evangelism? Our minds conjure up pictures of handing out religious tracts on street corners, or having to stand up and give our “testimony” in front of a crowd, or finding something religious to inject into every conversation. I remember a friend of mine telling how she cringed in her office one day. The weekend was coming up and someone exclaimed, “TGIF!” “Oh,” replied a cheerful soul who took every opportunity to make sure people knew she was a Christian, “you ought to be thanking God for every day of the week!”

Well, you and I both know there is more to being a witness to Jesus than that—and if anything it is considerably deeper and scarier. It has to do with the word “witness” in the New Testament, which is martus. That is the term from which we derive our English word “martyr”. It is no coincidence that in the earliest generations of the church that word shifted its meaning from one who bears witness to Christ to one who gives his or her life for Christ. Within a remarkably short time men and women would find themselves answering for their faith with their lives. Of the twelve apostles, all but one would die a martyr’s death. Peter, tradition tells us, was crucified upside down. Paul, because he was a Roman citizen, was spared the humiliation of crucifixion and mercifully beheaded. And the list goes on and on, right down to our present day, to the horrifying pictures that met us last year of the twenty-one men kneeling on the beach in Libya awaiting execution, refusing to abandon their faith and crying aloud, “Ya Rabbi Yasou”, “O Lord Jesus!”[1]

It is unlikely that that kind of fate awaits any of us, but the point I want to get across is that being a witness to Jesus, a martus, is more than just a matter of words. It encompasses our whole lives. It is not just speaking for Jesus, it is living for Jesus—and if our lives don’t match up with our words, then those words are worse than worthless. Would to God that the power of Jesus’ presence in our lives was such that people might start to ask questions because of them! I can’t think of a more powerful witness to Christ.

Promise

Jesus has given us his Holy Spirit. Jesus sends us out as his witnesses. As he departed from his followers, Jesus also left them with a promise. This time, however, the words are not those of Jesus himself, but of the “two men dressed in white”, as Luke simply describes them, whom the disciples suddenly saw standing beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they asked, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Jesus was gone—but he was not gone forever. And time does not permit me even to begin to delve into the details of his return. What is more, I don’t believe that the Bible itself reveals many of those details. I am convinced that God has purposefully left them shrouded in mystery, and yet given us just enough information that we should have a hope that is solid and sure. With the disciples we need to heed the angels’ warning and not simply stand around looking into the sky, so to speak, and waste our time in speculation. More than enough of that has been done already. Countless books have been written about Jesus’ return, ranging from the scholarly to the ridiculous. A Google search on “Return of Christ” will lead you to 86,500,000 results.

To go back to The Martian for just a moment and to astronaut Mark Watney, it seems to me that Jesus’ coming again differs from the attempts of the space crew to rescue their stranded colleague. From my own reading of Scripture, Jesus’ return will not be to rescue us from the world, but to wholly transform the world and ourselves in it—to usher in the new creation in all its glorious fullness. The Scriptures bid us look forward to the day when the trumpet will sound and Christ will put all his enemies under his feet, when death will be swallowed up in victory and our lowly bodies will be transformed into the likeness of Christ’s glorious body, when God’s dwelling-place will be among his people, and he will dwell with them, when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. That is the day that not only we, but all creation yearns to see.[2] It is a glorious hope and part of the reason it is not fully revealed to us is because it surpasses anything that our limited minds can even begin to imagine.

That hope, that sure and solid promise, is intended to lead us not to speculation but to action. The risen, ascended, glorified Jesus is calling you and me to be harbingers and heralds of the new creation even as the old is crumbling around us. But he doesn’t ask us to do it alone. We have his promise, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

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[1]        Ramez Atallah, Bible Society of Egypt Newsletter, 17 Feb 2015. http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=017b6b7c5bf6d7468fcc6aedc&id=ea8fa5435c&e=b383928924

[2]        See 1 Corinthians 15:52,25,54; Philippians 3:21; Revelation 21:3-4 ; Romans 8:22-23

“Unfinished Business” (John 21:15-19)

In the Gospel of John Jesus’ last words from the cross were these: “It is finished.” At that point, as he prepared to give up his spirit, Jesus had accomplished all that he had come to do—to offer up his life as what the Anglican Book of Common Prayer calls the one “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world”. The curtain of the temple (reputed to be as thick as a man’s hand) was about to be ripped apart, from top to bottom. The impenetrable wall of separation between sinful humankind and the all-holy God had been breached. Yet, in spite of the colossal nature of the cross, there still remained some loose ends that needed to be tied up.

For the past couple of weeks we have been having some renovations done to our house. Very soon I am hoping we will be able to say that the project has been completed. Yet, as with almost any undertaking, there will undoubtedly still remain a few details that will need to be attended to. Without wishing to be in any way frivolous, the same was true in those days following the crucifixion. Yes, Jesus’ mission was completed on the cross. “It is finished.” Yet there were still some important matters that needed to be dealt with. There were mourners like Mary Magdalene and Cleopas and his friend, who needed to be consoled and delivered from their grief. There were doubters like Thomas, who needed to be convinced that Jesus had indeed conquered death. And then there was Peter, who needed to be relieved of the terrible burden of guilt he carried about with him following his cowardly denial of Jesus outside the high priest’s court.

That last story is found only in the fourth gospel. It almost seems, at the end of chapter 20 and Jesus’ dramatic appearance to Thomas in the upper room, that John has come to the end of his account—and what a high point to end on! And so he concludes, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31). I can imagine John putting down his pen with a great sigh and then saying, “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you what happened with Peter…” and picking up his pen again to add the twenty-first chapter.

“It all happened like this…” he begins. The scene this time is to the north, in Galilee, where the disciples’ adventure with Jesus had begun. Seven of the disciples had gone out to fish. The first glimmers of the rising sun were beginning to appear on the horizon when they heard a voice from the shore. “You wouldn’t have anything to eat, would you?” Their annoyance at having caught nothing in spite of having been in the boat all night was evident in their monosyllabic reply: “No.” “Well, toss your net over to the right side of your boat and you’ll find some.”

Now you would think the disciples should have started to become a little suspicious. The scene was remarkably similar to something that had happened three years before. That time Peter had objected. This time, however, there was no demurral. The net had barely sunk into the water before it was bursting with fish. It was at that point that the penny dropped for John at least. “It’s the Lord,” he stammered. No sooner had the words left his mouth than Peter was pulling on a tunic and splashing into the water.

“Do you love me?” – Discipleship, not competition

It was after they had eaten that Jesus turned to Peter with the painful question, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” The question was painful for two reasons. First, Jesus was addressing Peter by his formal name, not the nickname—Peter, Rock—that Jesus himself had given him. Secondly, Jesus’ question harked back to a conversation that had taken place on the eve of his crucifixion. “All of you are going to desert me,” Jesus had warned them. But Peter objected, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I never will” (Mark 14:27-31). I don’t think it was intentional, but Peter was implying that his devotion to Jesus was greater than that of any of the other disciples. Now Jesus was asking, “What do you think about those words now, Peter? Do you really love me more than these?”

Jesus’ penetrating question reveals one of the most insidious dangers for the followers of Jesus. It is the temptation to turn discipleship into a competition. It is a very easy rut to fall into, to begin to compare ourselves (either favourably or unfavourably) with other Christians. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it isn’t good to have role models or saintly examples of Christian living that we look up to. Nor am I suggesting that there are some people (and, sad to say, Christians among them) whose lifestyles we should avoid. No, this is something considerably subtler than that. In the New Testament we see it in the church in Corinth, where some people were under the impression that their spiritual gifts were more valuable to the life of the church than those of others. No, says Paul, such comparisons have no place in the Christian community. To get his point across, he uses what has to be the most powerful image of the church in all the New Testament: the body of Christ, where every part, no matter how large or small, visible or hidden, plays a vital part in the functioning of the whole.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work… The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ … But God has put the body together … that its parts should have equal concern for each other. (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, 21,24-25)

We find our Lord Jesus enunciating the same principle more than once in the course of his teaching. Remember his absurd picture of the man attempting to remove a speck from someone else’s eye when there is a great beam protruding from his own (Matthew 7:3-5). Or how about his story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple? Do you recall the Pharisee’s prayer? “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:9-14). It is a trap that good, well-intentioned people can easily fall into. I have seen it in the churches where I have served. I have seen it in myself.

“Feed my lambs…” – Discipleship as service

“Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Three times Jesus addresses Peter with this painful question. Peter could hardly have failed to grasp the significance. Three times he answers: “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Yes, Lord, I love you.” And three times Jesus comes back with a commission: “Then feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.”

What was the point that Jesus was at pains to get across? It is that the essence of discipleship is not competition but servanthood. Once again, turning to Paul and his words to that contentious, competitive bunch in Corinth: “To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). And of course Paul is really only echoing the same principle that Jesus had emphasized to his disciples during his earthly ministry. It was when James and John had come to Jesus asking to sit at his right and his left in his kingdom. When word of this got to the other disciples, their blood rose. But Jesus’ words put a stop to any indignation they might have felt:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:25-28)

Jesus’ injunction to Peter was a call to servanthood. More than that, those words, “Feed my lambs,” would have taken Peter back to an earlier time when Jesus had declared of himself, “I am the good shepherd.” And the good shepherd’s faithfulness to his flock would lead him to give his very life for his sheep (John 10:11).

I recently received an article from a friend in Cairo about a remarkable example of Christian servanthood.

In 1969, the governor of Cairo created the slum by relocating the mostly Coptic Christian trash pickers [to the city’s squalid garbage dump…] Women and children pick through 15,000 tons of the city’s collected refuse, sorting out recyclable waste from the biodegradables useful for wandering livestock. Men haul burlap trash bags twice their size into garbage trucks poised to tip from overfill… By 1974, the community of Manshiat Nasser had grown to about 14,000 Copts, living without electricity, plumbing, or church. Alcoholism was rampant. Crime was common. A reluctant Orthodox layman was asked to visit with an eye toward ministry… One day Farahat Ibrahim was walking in the area, feeling overwhelmed. “Lord, I'm just a drop in the ocean,” he prayed. “There are many people here and they are very hard and wild. What do you want from me?” Ibrahim bought a pair of boots and a flashlight, and trudged out in visitation to his unreceptive adopted flock. One man attacked him with a knife. Another hid in the pigsty. But in an abandoned cave above the slum, in a tin hut with a reed roof, nine people attended the first church service… [Forty-plus years later Ibrahim, now ordained in the Coptic Church as Father Simon, continues to minister there.] Six churches have been planted and serve the poor. Patmos Hospital serves the sick. Ninety percent of all trash gets recycled, as NGOs market creatively designed garbage-turned-crafts.[1]

Tragically, I fear that we Christians are probably better known for what we are against than for that kind of servanthood. At the same time, I don’t think you have to scratch too far beneath the surface of almost any church to find people who are feeding the hungry, offering shelter to the homeless and engaged in countless other ways in taking care of Jesus’ lost sheep.

“Follow me!” – Discipleship as a response to God’s love in Christ

It is a compelling picture—and Peter would indeed find himself serving in that very way, even going to the death for it. Yet I believe it still misses what is at the heart of genuine discipleship. I believe we need to go a level deeper—and that comes to us in Jesus’ final words to Peter in this morning’s passage: “Follow me.” “Follow me”—the same words Peter had heard addressed to him as he had stood casting his net for fish three years before.

You see, at its core discipleship really has nothing to do with what I can do for Jesus. It begins with what Jesus has done for me. Discipleship is a response—a response to God’s love for me in Christ. We will inevitably falter and fail in our service to Jesus and to others, just as Peter did. But there is one who will never fail, one who says to each of us, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). Again I am reminded of the apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians when he writes of his own ministry, “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance beautifully illustrated what I want to say when he reminisced of an experience he had with his daughter. He wrote,

Many years ago I recall thinking of the marvellous way in which our human faith is implicated in the faith of Jesus Christ and grasped by his faithfulness, when I was teaching my little girl to walk. I can still feel her tiny fingers gripping my hand as tightly as she could. She did not rely upon her feeble grasp of my hand but upon my strong grasp of her hand which enfolded her grasp of mine within it. That is surely how God’s faithfulness actualized in Jesus Christ laid hold of our weak and faltering faith and holds it securely in his hand.’[2]

Discipleship just isn’t about us. It’s about Jesus taking us, feeble and fault-ridden as we are, and working through us. May what we have read and heard this morning encourage each of us to be grasped by that strong hand of Jesus to draw us more deeply into himself, so that forgiven, restored and impelled by his love, we may go out to serve him in the world. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

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[1]        Jayson Casper, “From Garbage to Glory”, Christianity Today, April 2016

[2]        Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, page 83

“Unless I see the scars” (John 20:24-29)

It seems that on the Sunday after Easter there just isn’t another story to tell than John’s account of Thomas and his unwillingness to believe. I have to admit that I looked hard for one, since I just preached on this passage a year ago and did not want just to rehash an old sermon. However, just six weeks ago my wife Karen and I had the enormous privilege of visiting what tradition claims as the sites of the martyrdom and burial of the Apostle Thomas in Chennai, India—so I decided to take a look at Thomas once again.

Thomas is a character who occupies very little prominence in the gospel story up to this point. The first we meet with him is in the lists of Jesus’ apostles in each of the first three gospels. The lists divide into three groups of four, and Thomas is in the second group, suggesting, in the words of one scholar, “neither eminence nor obscurity”.[1] We do not meet with Thomas again until towards the end of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus had been informed that his friend Lazarus was grievously ill. The disciples tried to dissuade him from going to him for fear that Jesus’ life might be in danger. Thomas, however, challenged them, saying, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). The next time Thomas comes into the picture is in the upper room. Jesus had been saying puzzling things about going away to somewhere that they could not come and yet that he was preparing a place for them. It was Thomas who protested, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” To which Jesus famously replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:5-6).

Fast-forward now a few more days. The disciples were again in the upper room—all of them, that is, except for Thomas. The doors were locked, just in case the religious authorities decided to come down on them now that they had managed to dispose of Jesus. A mixture of fear and puzzlement filled the room because of the recurring reports that Jesus, who had been executed only days before, had been seen alive. Whether it was the weak flickering of the oil lamps or whatever, we do not know. But for some reason they were not aware of the other person in the room until they heard the familiar words, “Peace be with you.” Their fear turned to joy as he showed them his hands and side and they realized it was Jesus. When they told Thomas what had happened, he could not bring himself to believe them. We all know his words: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” It was a week later, when Jesus appeared to the disciples once again and this time Thomas was among them, that his adamant refusal to believe melted away. “My Lord and my God!” was all that he could manage to sputter out—one of the greatest and most famous professions of faith in all of history.

A little more about Thomas

The story of Thomas does not end there, however. Twice more we meet with him in the New Testament: the first time on the shores of Lake Galilee as Jesus appears to the disciples (John 21:3), and finally in the upper room once again with the other disciples following Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:13).

Although the New Testament has nothing more to say about Thomas, early Christian tradition does. And while we cannot guarantee its accuracy, the odds are pretty good that some of it has a basis in historical fact. So here is how the story goes. Thomas, a carpenter by trade, was sold as a slave to an Indian merchant and ended up in the service of a king named Gundaphor, who is known from contemporary records and coins to have reigned from about 20 AD at least until the year 46. Thomas was engaged to build him a palace. The king gave him a substantial sum of money, the entirety of which Thomas promptly distributed among the poor. When the king insisted on seeing some progress, Thomas told him that the mansion he was building was in heaven. His words were these: “You cannot see it now, but when you depart this life, then you shall see it.”[2] For that he was immediately sent to prison but miraculously escaped, and King Gundaphor was converted to Christianity.

Thomas’s missionary journey then led him more than a thousand miles southwards along the west coast of India, where he arrived in the ancient city of Muziris in the year 52. Muziris had enjoyed a longstanding trade relationship with the Roman Empire, in addition to a Jewish settlement that had been established for six centuries, and it was probably both that drew Thomas there. Clearly Muziris was ripe for the gospel. During his short stay Thomas is credited to have founded seven and a half churches. (I’ve never found out what the half-church was all about!)

The next we hear of him is on the southeast coast of India, in Mylapore, part of modern-day Chennai. Through his ministry both the king’s wife and his son came to profess the Christian faith. Thomas, however, was sentenced to execution. Under the king’s orders he was led to a hill outside the city by four soldiers, who pierced him to death with their spears in 72 AD. Nearly fifteen centuries later, when Portuguese missionaries first traveled to India, they discovered that there were already well-established Christian communities, which traced their origins back to St Thomas’s evangelistic exploits. Right down to the present day the Mar Thoma Church of India, or Nasrani as its members are called, continue, as Thomas did, to worship Jesus as their Lord and their God.

The wounds we have received

I confess that all of that is really off-topic. So let’s go back to the upper room, a week to the day after reports of Jesus’ resurrection had begun to circulate. Thomas’s dogged insistence on seeing Jesus’ scars may seem almost ghoulish to our sensitivities today. I personally find it difficult to be faced with the sight of an open wound. Yet I have always appreciated the story of Thomas. It assures me that there is a place for healthy skepticism in the church and that Jesus is more than able to deal with our doubts.

This time around, however, I have begun to see the story of Thomas from another angle. In the past my focus has always been on Thomas and his transformation from doubt to faith. This time reading the story I have found myself attention drawn to Jesus—and not just to Jesus but to those nail marks, those scars that Thomas was so insistent on seeing. I have been helped in this by an article I came across recently by Leonard Vander Zee, interim editor of The Banner. He wrote this:

We all have scars … countless inner wounds: the griefs that never quite heal, wrongs that can never be righted, memories that cannot be erased, hurtful words or betrayals that still seem to have a direct line to our tear ducts or to the recurrent knot in our stomach. We are all scarred in one way or another. You can’t get through life without scars, inside or outside.

So it’s fascinating that when John tells the story of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples after the resurrection, he tells how Jesus shows them his scars—not once, but twice.[3]

A generation after the events in the upper room (as Thomas was far off in south India) the apostle Peter reflected, “Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Peter was of course quoting from the famous passage about the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, from which we drew our Old Testament reading this morning:

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4,5)

And so, as we stand with Thomas and look upon Jesus’ scars, we recognize that those scars are ours: the hurts we have carried with us since childhood, the betrayals that have left us feeling forsaken and destitute, the losses of deep and abiding friendships, or perhaps the physical pain and deprivation of illness and disease—all of what Shakespeare called “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.[4] Jesus has borne all of these upon himself on the cross, so that we can look forward to that day when sorrow and sighing will have fled away and our only tears will be tears of joy.

The wounds we have caused

Yet as I look upon Jesus’ scars, I recognize that these are not the only wounds he bears. What about the injuries, not that others have done to me, but that I have caused to them?

I remember years ago being asked by a doctor friend to visit one of his patients in the hospital who was suffering from intractable pain. It should have been amenable to treatment but it was not, and he had begun to wonder if her problem was not physical but spiritual. She was German originally and in conversation it turned out that she had been a member of the Nazi party, and while she had never personally tortured or killed anybody, she could not forgive herself for her complicity in the untold sufferings of millions of innocent people. Sadly, she was never able to recognize that Jesus had taken those wounds upon himself, never able to accept the forgiveness that God offered to her through the cross.

I don’t know about you, but as I look back on my life, there are things of which I am deeply ashamed: unkind words spoken without thought—and sometimes quite deliberately, not responding to others in their time of need because I was too busy with my own preoccupations, allowing my actions to be dictated by prejudice or preconceived notions about others, not to mention my complicity in global injustices and inequalities. The list could go on and on and indeed it does. And while there are some things for which I may be able to make amends and should, there are far more that I cannot, some of which I am not even aware of. These scars too Jesus has taken upon himself on the cross.

One year after the carnage of World War 1, Edward Shillito, a Free Church pastor serving in England, wrote these words:

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;

Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;

We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,

We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.


The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;

In all the universe we have no place.

Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?

Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.


If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,

Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;

We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,

Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.


The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;

They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;

But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,

And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.[5]

Today let us thank God for Thomas and his doubts. But even more let us thank him for the scars that Jesus revealed to him. Surely he bore our sorrows and was bruised for our iniquities.

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[1]        Robin E. Nixon, “Thomas, Apostle”, The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church

[2]       Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 51

[3]       “He Showed Them His Wounds”, Reformed Worship, December 2012 http://www.reformedworship.org/article/december-2012/he-showed-them-his-wounds

[4]       Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

[5]        “Jesus of the Scars”