Be My Witness (Acts 1:1-8)

Be My Witness

 

Acts 1:1-8

 

Today’s text tells us what Jesus, who had been crucified and risen again, promised and commanded his disciples. Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection was an epoch-making event that ended an old era and opened a new one. It is truly the most revolutionary incident in human history. Yet we may not understand its meaning fully. To many of us, it is merely a happening that happened in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. But this is not true. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, a new world opened. In fact, it is Jesus himself who knows the meaning of this event best and is able to explain it most clearly. And through Jesus’ word in this text, we may get a glimpse of the new world. And the new world is what the disciples would live from then on, and what we are living now.

 

According to verse 3, risen Jesus appeared to the disciples for forty days and showed them many convincing proofs that he was alive, and to them, Jesus spoked about “the kingdom of God.” But in verse 6, the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” While Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God, the disciples were asking about the restoration of the Israeli kingdom. This shows what they were keenly interested in. And because of their distracted interest, they could not figure out the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. They were trapped in “the kingdom of Israel.” Actually, “the kingdom of Israel” mentioned by the disciples was “my kingdom.” They invested their lives in Jesus. It was a risky venture for “a better future.” In Matthew 19:27-28, Peter asked Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Then, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” What Jesus was doing was “renewing all things.” It was building the kingdom of God on the truth of Christ and through the power of the Holy Spriit. But in the disciples’ hearts was their own “heaven,” which was the kingdom of Israel. They earnestly wanted that Jesus would restore the old nation.

 

The genius physicist Albert Einstein is known to have shifted the foundation of modern physics through his theories of relativity. I don’t know the significance of these theories, but what impressed me was his research method. “Einstein understood that imagination and thinking outside the box were vital ingredients to innovation” (quoted from ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’ an article on Einstein in The Decision Lab (thedecisionlab.com)). Here, “the box” meant Isaac Newton’s theory of classical mechanics, which people had accepted without questions. While most of physicists observed visible phenomena and expressed their observations in equations, Einstein performed “thought experiment,” picturing in his mind things such as moving trains, accelerating elevators, falling painters. Through these experiments, he showed that the world as it appears to human beings may not be the world as it functions at all. In his biography, I couldn’t see any record that he observed the sky with a telescope. He produced various physics theories only through “thinking and imagination.” And these theories were proved only after many years through elaborately designed experiments and observations. Through thinking and imagination, Einstein saw the truth hidden behind the visible world.

 

We can find similar examples in the Bible. In Luke 7, a centurion sent people to Jesus in order to ask him to come and heal his servant. On Jesus’ way to his house, he again sent his friends to say, “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” To the centurion, Jesus was not “a humble Galilean man” as seen in appearance. In his thought, Jesus was “the supreme ruler of the world” at whom even the deadly sickness would tremble and run away. In Mark 5, a woman with bleeding for twelve years came up behind Jesus secretly and touched his clock, thinking, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” At that time, a large crowd was surrounding Jesus and pushing and pulling him in all directions. But nothing happened to them. In her heart, however, the bleeding woman thought “the kingdom of God.” It was a thought about Jesus. Who she was touching was not a Jewish man passing feebly as jostled by the crowd. He was the savior who, with his overflowing power, is saving the souls and making them whole, even such a hopeless one like her.

 

People try to observe and understand the world from “inside a box.” And while staying in the box safely, they seek the kingdom of God and expect to enjoy its benefits.  To Jesus’ disciples, the box was the kingdom of Israel. And it was “my kingdom.” Of course, in this box as well, they think and imagine. But their thought and imagination are not about the kingdom of God. What they think and imagine are what they want in this world, what they worry about, and what they fear. In wrestling and struggling with these things, they spend all their mental and spiritual energies. Thus, they don’t have any extra energy left for thinking, imagining, and visualizing the kingdom of God. In fact, the kingdom of God is an invisible world. Thus, they should put more effort and energy to see it in their mind. But people fill their mind only with things of this visible world, and don’t work hard to grasp invisible things through thinking and imagination. While their hearts are careless, they demand God to show something to see if He can. Some of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you” (Matthew 12:38). While they were stubborn like a donkey, they challenged Jesus to make them believe. In another scene, people, expecting to get bread from Jesus, said to him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (John 6:30-31). According to their common sense, a savior was one who would solve the food problem like Moses in the wilderness. Only staying inside the box, they sought God. Instead breaking the box and going outside to see God as Himself, they tried to grab and squeeze God into “my box.” Inside the box are all kinds of small and large desires, worries, fears, and issues. While we are muddled in the messy box, we call the name of “my God” and pray to him so that we may get some help from him. Still in the busy mind, we don’t have a room to wait for his answer.

 

To the disciples asking about the restoration of the Israeli kingdom, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority” (7). Jesus is almost saying, “It’s none of your business.” This word is quite harsh. It is even more so, considering that the disciples had invested their whole lives out of their trust in Jesus. Now they were quite penniless. And Jesus was going back to heaven. In this situation, Jesus was saying, “It’s none of your business.” They were worrying about their own lives, and Jesus was saying, “It’s none of your business.” And he was urging them to give their thought to the business of God’s kingdom. Despite his tremendous academic talent, Einstein had to live a shabby life several years. In order to support himself and his family, he worked eight hours a day as a third-class clerk at a patent office in Zurich, Switzerland. Once, he applied for a position of math teacher at a high school, enclosing all of his historical research papers in the application, but he failed to pass the first screening that picked three out of the 20 applicants. A famous scientist visited his patent office and encountered Einstein in the lobby, but he just passed him, thinking that the humble-looking office worker couldn’t be such an outstanding physicist. After all, Einstein became renowned and was invited as a professor of a university in Zurich, but his salary was the same amount as he had received as a third-class clerk in the patent office, and his first lecture had only three students, two of them his friends at the patent office. It seems that Einstein didn’t have any idea to use his academic talents in improving his living. What made his life rich was “science” itself. Whether in the narrow office room or in the shabby attic, when he was alone, he closed the door to the world and set out a journey to the universe expanding with no limit in his head. St. Paul also confessed, “Whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things” (Philippians 3:7-8a). He also said, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:20-21). Paul didn’t follow Jesus in order to live a rich and noble life. To him, Jesus himself was his “richness” and his “nobleness.” Even about his own life, he says, “it’s none of my business.” He pulled himself completely out of the box of “Israeli kingdom” or “my kingdom,” and lived in “God’s kingdom,” which is Jesus Christ himself.

 

In verse 8, Jesus commanded the disciples. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” With regard to the Holy Spirit, Jesus said in verse 4, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.’ In verse 5 as well, Jesus said, “For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” As to general relativity found by Einstein, British physicist J.J. Thomson said, “General relativity is not an isolated result but ‘a whole continent of scientific ideas.’” By the deep reflection and search of one person Einstein, a gigantic continent of knowledge, which had been unknown, rose to the surface. And many branches of science and technology are now supported by this finding. For example, GPS satellites we are using everyday must account for general relativistic effects to deliver accurate position measurements to people on Earth. In the same way, Jesus is not just one great figure and his death and resurrection not just one great event in human history. Jesus is “a continent.” He is the kingdom of God that came down on earth. And everything on it is from him, through him, and for him. And this kingdom expands through the witnesses of Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus said to his disciples, “You will be my witnesses.” While preparing the sermon, I asked my daughter Maria to write a short testimony about how I had been to her, not as her dad but as “a witness of Jesus Christ.” And she sent me the testimony as follows:

 

When my dad first explained to me the topic of today's message, I couldn't help but laugh a little. The reason was, all my life, since I can remember, one thing I always mentioned to friends and acquaintances when describing my dad is that every conversation, no matter how it started, would end up in a discussion about Jesus. I could be talking about feeling nervous for an exam, a boy that I liked, or a conflict with friends - it did not matter - the conversation would always lead to a passage in the Bible and something about Jesus.

 

To be honest, I would feel annoyed sometimes because I wanted my dad to be interested in what I was talking about, not always turn it around to Jesus. And once my dad started talking about Jesus, it would turn into almost an entire sermon, and at times I did not have the patience or interest to listen.

 

But I also admired the love he had for Jesus. He loved God's Word and always held it close to him. Even when he fell asleep at his desk, his Bible was always nearby. Looking back, I think my dad was that way because he couldn't help but want to share about Jesus all the time. The immensity and great love of God was too big to contain. And now, as I am learning more about God and His Word, I feel very privileged and grateful to have a dad who can share that passion and excitement with me.

 

I was glad to read what she wrote about me. Einstein’s lifelong wish was finding a more complete explanation of the universe, which was “a unified field theory” that would tie together electricity and magnetism and gravity and quantum mechanics. However, his search for the unified theory, which may explain every force observed in the universe, was not so successful. But we have it in the Bible. It is Jesus. Jesus said of himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). The risen Jesus said to John, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last” (Revelation 1:17b). I think this is why I could lead all conversations with my daughter to Jesus, whatever the topic was. In this sense, I may be able to boast of myself I know “the unified field theory” that Einstein was looking for. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus, the Son

of God, “sustains all things by his powerful word.” The Holy Spirit is God’s power, and according to today’s text, the Spirit comes from Jesus, and the Spirit comes upon us through Jesus, and the Spirit empowers and leads us to be a witness for Jesus. If we want to live a fruitful life in the kingdom of God, we need to know “the unified principle” explaining how the power works in this land. The power is the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit works from Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus. When we are trapped in “my box,” we will suffer darkness, powerlessness, loneliness, and emptiness with no way out at all. But when we receive the Holy Spirit from Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus, we will have the power to break down the box and bloom like a lily in all its glory just as God designed for us in Jesus Christ. May the Lord give us this glorious freedom, beauty, and joy in Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit!!!