The Apostle Paul known as one of the most admired Christians and the foremost apologist, evangelist, and missionary for the Christian faith didn’t start out that way.  Today, meet Saul (going by his circumcision Jewish name instead of by his Greek name.)  Back then, he was the foremost persecutor of the Church.  Get to know him in this way and understand better how completely transformed and broken he’d become on a road to Damascus when he meets the Risen Lord.

(This message was first preached by Barbara Shafer at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on April 12, 2015.)

Easter Message 2015: The Emptiness That Does Not Disappoint

Something empty often brings a sense of disappointment.

• Bite off the head of the chocolate bunny and find it’s hollow, not solid. Bummer.
• Play Monopoly at the Jewel Food Stores and get a game code to check online. Log in. Enter your password. Carefully enter the code number. Sorry this is not a winning code. Bummer.
• Get a package in the mail with no return address of note. Get excited! Open it up. Nothing but a fake key and a piece of paper telling you that some company will give you top dollar for your car. You like your car. You’re not going to sell your car.
• Publisher’s Clearinghouse. You could be a winner! Or not.
• Go to the garden center and buy a flat of impatiens only to find out that 1 out of every 4 pods is just dirt. Bummer!

The empty tomb that Easter morning didn’t bring a sense of disappointment. It was far too confusing and alarming to be disappointing. That sense of alarm and confusion would persist as each disciple dealt with his or her feelings about what was going on.

If you were to read the parallel account to our Scripture reading this morning, the one found in John 20:1-18, you’d find Mary Magdalene, Peter and John. They’d all have different reactions to the empty tomb.

John 20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” 3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes,11 but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15 “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Reactions?

• Mary Magdalene wept and told “the gardener” that she’ll go and carry Jesus’ body back herself and put it back in the empty tomb if he’d only tell her where he’d put Jesus. But Jesus shows her that He’s very much alive. No need to put Him back in the place of the dead.
• Peter looks in, goes in, and concludes the tomb was empty. No body. Grave clothes folded up. No need to investigate further. He didn’t understand.
• John, the beloved disciple, looks in. Then after Peter goes in, John enters in and believes that it’s empty. He still didn’t understand what Jesus had been talking about. Rise from the dead? What’s that?
• The guards knew that it was empty and they were afraid for their lives.
• The Jewish leaders heard that it was empty…and they were angry…

…which brings us to our preaching passage this morning from Acts 7:54-56 which for those of us who make Plymouth our home church, we know that we’ve been slogging our way through the Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles for quite a while. Some of you may be thinking,

Aren’t you going to give it a rest, even on Easter? Come’on!

To those of you wondering that, I would assert No, I’m not going to give it a rest because it tells the rest of the Easter story. I’m kind of like Paul Harvey today. Telling you the rest of the story.

Because the Easter story doesn’t end with simple emptiness and a total mystery.

When we last left off with Stephen, the first martyr of the Church, he was defending himself against false accusations by religious leaders who hated Jesus and hate those who follow Jesus. One of those hated people who took Jesus at His Word was Stephen and Stephen’s outcome parallels in human ways that of Jesus who was the Son of God in addition to the Son of Man.

For those of you who know that the Easter story began with Jesus’ birth, His 3 year ministry, continued with the persecution and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, He was buried in a tomb which was sealed with a great big stone, and then suddenly he’s vanished. (Just as He said, if only they’d understood back then).

According to KosherTorah.com the writer Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok describes the power of the spoken word,

Do not underestimate your own power of speech. I do not have to challenge you to remember the last time you said something to someone that either elevated him or her or put them down. Indeed, our speech creates many things. It can create joy or it can create anger. What we say can start a war or avoid one. Speech and words, whether in spoken or written form are the most powerful weapons in the world. Indeed, even the magical word “Abracadabra” reveals this lesson. Unknown to most the word “Abracadabra” is actually a Hebrew phrase, which means “I create (A’bra) what (ca) I speak (dab’ra).” In light of all this mysticism, we understand now very well why the words we speak have tremendous power. Therefore, when we say that we will do something, our words are creating that reality. When, we therefore, do not keep our word; we are in essence destroying a part of creation. This is a horrible spiritual crime.

Reasons enough to be careful with our speech. But when you think of the power of the spoken word as a created reality and moreover, the spoken Word of God as a CREATING reality, there is the power of God that was well beyond anything magical or mystical. Jesus said He’d rise and He did. Of course, Jesus said a lot of other great things too, and we’d be wise to listen to and follow them all! Stephen did.

So when Stephen crowns his defense with the truth from Scripture: Acts 7:52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him– 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.” 54 When [the religious leaders- they] heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

That is, Stephen died.

He was stoned to death… the first martyr of the Church and a powerful apologist for the Christian faith. His words echoed the created reality of Jesus’ powerful final words. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).  Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing (Luke 23:34).  Stephen’s last words  “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” are a human echo of those divine last words from the lips of our Savior, our Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ. And after speaking this reality of the Son of Man standing in heaven, Stephen died.

So here’s the rest of the story! How did Jesus get up there?

How could Stephen look up and see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God?

Because Jesus wasn’t still in the tomb! The tomb was empty. He had to be somewhere. And far from being a disappointment, this was the glory of God on display. There was nothing to see in the tomb but some grave clothes. The physical reality was empty tomb. The spiritual reality was complete and full. Jesus is the Christ. He is Risen. He is Risen indeed!

• In a day and age in which Christians shrink from speaking publicly about their faith in Jesus Christ out of very real fear…
• In a day and age in which Christians are persecuted in ways from economic and legislative bullying to being executed by stoning, gunfire, being burned alive and physical beheadings, even as recently as at the university in Kenya where Christians were murdered because they are Christians…
• In a day and age known for its empty lifestyle bereft, devoid, emptied of all morality…
• In a day and age of hopeless co-pilots crashing planes into mountainsides taking innocent passengers to their deaths because misery loves company and a secular world is shocked at the emptiness of conscience…
• In a day and age in which words have NO meaning, truth has NO home, we’re told everything is relative and what’s true for me and what’s true for you is a matter of personal choice…
• In a day and age known for a rotting, cancerous, core of dishonesty, falsehood, tons of clutter to disguise the lies being told, and we have a bunch of willing accomplice media cheerleaders for the devil who says God doesn’t exist and no one should point a finger of judgment or some Bible at you and ruin your good time…

In a day and age of all that, what do Christians have?

We have an empty tomb and a spoken reality. He is Risen.

We have the emptiness that does not disappoint!

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

We have the Word of God proven true. We have an empty tomb and a full heaven. Full because He is alive! We have the true Word of God spoken from the lips of Christ and all the prophets before Him to tell us that God Himself created a way for us to return to Him. So that we could be born again, not in the pattern of this world with its physical imperfections and lies of self-salvation, earning our way to heaven by being good people in our own eyes with our lie of relative truth and flimsy self-standards of morality. No!

We could be born again in the pattern of holiness, in the spiritual realm where truth lives on. Truth lives on! He rose from the dead! Truth. Lives. On. The tomb may be empty but heaven is full. Jesus is alive and Stephen saw it as sure as anything. The Son of Man was standing there at the right hand of the Father in heaven! We have the emptiness that does not disappoint and the fact we can count on is this: because God spoke the Resurrection and brought it about by His power, it gives us confidence to speak up about Jesus, to live by His pattern of love and grace, to live in light of the Last Day of Judgment, and to know eternal life in Him.

This emptiness does not disappoint because if Jesus rose from the dead (and He did) as believers upon His Name, we will someday rise too! His created reality works on our behalf. So, like Stephen, we can be bold witnesses, filled with the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised and whom God faithfully sent to be His ongoing presence with all genuine and true believers in Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross and His powerful resurrection. And now I would like to close in prayer.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

…First, that if anyone does not know Jesus as both Lord and Savior, today would be the day they see beyond the empty tomb to the fullness of heaven because Jesus rose from the dead and offers eternal life to all who believe in His death for their sakes as payment for their sins. Lord God, please hear our prayer.

…that You, O God, would make us bold to tell people we know about Jesus. The days are fewer in number and time is of the essence! Lord God, please hear our prayer.

…that You, O God, would remind us that Truth matters because Truth is a person: Jesus is the Way the Truh and the Life and no one comes to the Father apart from Him

…that You, O God, would convince us that words have power and words have meaning. That You created this world out of nothing by simply speaking everything into being. That You have power to create and kill and destroy and to throw in hell. That’s what Your Word says. And Your Word is true. But that You also made a way by Your grace because You love us and are patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish but for all people to come to repentance and a saving knowledge of the true words of Christ. Lord God, please hear our prayer.

…that You, O God, would help us to speak up and speak out to a culture that worships empty things…things of man, things of government, things of politics…and to show them by the graceful words we speak that we desire for them to know the fullness of joy in Christ in place of the empty things of this world. They would know the emptiness that does not disappoint—the empty tomb and a full heaven—in place of the empty things that cannot save! …that You, O God would give us words to speak, creating that reality of hope to a world desperately in need of it and trying to find it in empty places.

…that You, O God would continually show us the empty tomb and the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father in heaven and to know as Stephen did, Jesus Christ, the glory of His Resurrection, the meaning of salvation in Him, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the hope eternal—a hope that does not disappoint—because He is Risen. He is Risen indeed. Amen!

The Easter message “The Emptiness That Does Not Disappoint” was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on April 5, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.  Listen on YouTube by clicking this link.

Sermon text versions of messages are also available on SeminaryGal.com in the chapel sermon archives.

Palm Sunday Message, Acts 7:37-53

I’m always kind of conflicted about Palm Sunday.  I know it’s a critical event on the church calendar, but for the Sunday to Sunday crowd who attends church in America, Palm Sunday is an instance of party-hopping.  We go from the party on Palm Sunday with branches waving and shouting “Hosanna” to the party on Easter with trumpets trumpeting as we shout “He is Risen!  He is Risen indeed!”  Party hopping, not with a Messiah like Him, but especially on Palm Sunday…with a messiah like us.  One who looks—not like God—but looks remarkably like you and me.  He looks like just a regular Joe or Jesus.

This same concern is the one Stephen—the first martyr of the Church—will address in today’s preaching passage from Acts that is eerily parallel to our Scripture reading this morning about the Triumphal Entry.  These events beginning with the mountaintop of Palm Sunday’s party will descend into the valley of death that stands in the gap between Sunday party and Sunday party.  It’s in the valley, it’s in the death that the real work of God got done.  There would be no party on Easter if it weren’t for the persecution, the valley of death, the hill called Golgotha, the place of the Skull, the Cross, and the cold of a tomb.

Stephen even says as much.  Let me read the entire preaching passage in bulk and then we’ll explore the similarities between Palm Sunday and the text that crowns Stephen’s artful defense before the Sanhedrin.  Remember, they’ve accused Stephen of blaspheming against this holy place (the temple) and against the customs of Moses (the Law).  He’s been recounting the great stuff Moses did and how the Israelites really didn’t appreciate it at the time.

Acts 7:37 “This is that Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.’ 38 He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us. 39 “But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt– we don’t know what has happened to him!’ 41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made. 42 But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: “‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? 43 You have lifted up the shrine of Molech and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon. 44 “Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46 who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built the house for him. 48 “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says: 49 “‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? 50 Has not my hand made all these things?’ 51 “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him– 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”

Essentially, Stephen is saying to the Sanhedrin who care so much about the temple and the Law, “You religious narrow-minded Torah thumpers, you rejected all the prophets who predicted a Messiah of God’s sending.  Those prophets never predicted a manmade messiah like the one you wanted.  One who looks like you and me.  You care about Moses?  You rejected Moses yourselves!  The golden calf, the wilderness wandering…all that was because you didn’t wait for God and you decided to worship gods that were made with human hands.  Look! You’ve made gods now out of the temple and the customs of Moses.  You rejected Jesus, the Messiah of God’s sending, in favor of a messiah who looks a lot like you and me.  A manmade messiah!  You killed Jesus because you liked your gods better.”

On Palm Sunday, Jesus was hailed in His Triumphal Entry as the King of Israel and was expected to be a political warrior king who would restore Israel by conquering their enemies.  Instead, He rode in as the peacemaker riding on a gentle donkey—a picture of Solomon riding in to Jerusalem.  Jesus was hailed as Messiah in the line of David, the King of Israel.  Jesus became a messiah, they thought, of their own making, they were crowning Him king—not realizing that He was the “Sent One.”  Jesus was already Messiah, already God, long before He was ever sent.  They’d be disappointed.  The Messiah of God’s plan, the One sent from God was for the purpose of salvation not war.

But in fine tradition of Jewish leaders, “Acts 7:52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One.”  The Righteous One, the Messiah, Jesus Christ came and was persecuted and killed.  The religious leaders would kill the real Messiah and yet, God’s work would be done in the valley of death, in the shadow of the Cross, and in the cold of the tomb which stood dark between the Sunday parties.

Why did they reject Jesus?  Jesus rides in as a hero, but then didn’t act like a messiah-of-their-making.   He didn’t bow to them, their knowledge, or their gods of temple and teachings.

Jesus was a remarkably unpopular guy even before mankind’s hangover immediately following the Palm Sunday party.  And not just unpopular with the religious leaders.  He was offering strange teachings about self-denial and cross-picking-upping.  He clears the temple because “Matthew 21:13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”  That den of robbers is the temple that Stephen’s accusers, the Sanhedrin, still cared so much about only a short while after Jesus’ death!  Jesus is healing people in the temple area, something the Pharisees couldn’t do and therefore disapproved of.  He withers a fig tree as a symbolic rejection of hypocrisy of the religious leaders.  He displays authority they don’t have.  He hints that He knows they’re planning on killing Him out of envy.  He tells them that they don’t believe in God.  He tells them that they’re outside the Kingdom and won’t be at the banquet and has stated that they are not Abraham’s descendants!  They are sons of the devil.  In response to their intellectual trap, He tells them Matthew 22:29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”  To those learned religious types, being told they don’t know the Scriptures was profoundly insulting and Jesus exposes them like the emperor with no clothes.  He tells them that they haven’t got the slightest clue how to love God or love mankind.  He proves His superior understanding and His flawless teaching and then proceeds to pronounce 7 woes upon these religious leaders.  Four woes about hypocrisy in their teachings, but then goes on to say these:

Matthew 23:25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. 29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! 33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation. 37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'”

Palm Sunday’s version of “Blessed is He” was already sung at His Triumphal Entry. Jesus is talking about the “Blessed is He” to be sung on the Last Day.  On Judgment Day when all these hypocrites–with their manmade temple and their manmade customs and their manmade gods—will bow down and acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah.  The One they’re about to kill during what we call Holy Week (on account of Jesus’ teachings and those 7 woes) is in fact, the Messiah of God’s plan and far more powerful than any manmade messiahs…which are a dime a dozen.

Only Jesus is God and He will be exalted as our story unfolds after the parties on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.  He is exalted at His Ascension which was before Stephen’s speech.  Only Jesus is the Messiah and able to save.  Only Jesus will be there when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father!

Think of all the messiahs we create for ourselves—gods of money, family, friends, traditions, political leaders, musicians, actors, sports figures who can dance with the stars. 

None of these can save us.

Jesus isn’t that kind of Messiah. 

Seven woes come “Boom!” from nice guy Jesus.  But Jesus was better than nice.  He was honest.  He gave them the brutal truth of what was to come.  That’s what formed the basis for the accusations against Jesus that we also see against Stephen.

• Jesus said about the temple:  Matthew 24:2 “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
• And so they accused:  Mark 14:58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.'”
• Jesus said John 2:19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
• They wanted a man-made messiah and a man-made temple.  John 2:20 The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. 23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men.

And that’s because He came from God.  He was God’s kind of Messiah, not a manmade one.

So as Jesus works His way from Sunday to Sunday, it’s no party.

• In a mere 5 days, He will go from being revered as the King of Israel to being rejected as a blasphemer and crucified as a criminal.
• He will go from being Rabbi, Lord, and Teacher to being abandoned by His disciples.
• He will go from being everyone’s curiosity and a celebrity to being scorned by everyone.  People will turn their faces from Him, scoff at Him, beat Him, and give Him anything but the red carpet celebrity treatment.  Nailed to a cross.  That’s what they’ll do to Him.
• He will go from riding in, peace-loving riding on a donkey, to being killed, nailed to a Cross in a jealous act of hate.
• Jesus Christ, God with us—Emmanuel—would be rejected in a mere 5 days…as not God at all.

Sunday to Sunday, Jesus would be the last prophet, God’s Son, the Messiah, the Savior.  A Messiah who looks just like God.  He would establish that God’s temple is in the hearts of men who believe that Jesus was the Sent One.  He would achieve that destruction and rebuilding process in the valley by His Crucifixion, burial and yes, by His Resurrection.  The manmade temple of 46 year building project would be empty.  Lights on.  Nobody home.  Empty.  And to prove it in 70 AD (within the lifetime of some of these Pharisees) that manmade temple will be a pile of rubble, just as Jesus said.  Jesus had already transferred the temple to the hearts of those who believe.

But for the religious leaders, those who were motivated by manmade temples and a manmade Moses, Sunday to Sunday would be described as Stephen did:  Acts 7:52 “Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him– 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”

Just like Jesus would be crucified for asserting the truth about a Messiah like Him versus a manmade messiah like me or you, Stephen would be stoned for saying that very thing.  Telling the truth.  But Stephen with his angel face and flawless argument will have driven the truth home: The Righteous One is a Messiah like Jesus and we needed His death in order to experience His Resurrection and Holy Spirit power.

What I’d like to see you that take home from all of this is to enjoy the Palm Sunday party.  And enjoy the Easter party. 

But more than that, to remember also that the real work of this season wasn’t done on Sundays.  The real work was done in the valley of death, on the Cross, at the place of the Skull, Golgotha and the cold of a tomb.  Christianity would be nothing without Good Friday.  There would be no Easter Sunday after-party if Friday hadn’t happened.

Death was overcome not party-hopping on Sundays, but rather on a Friday that was Good indeed.  A Friday that was Good for Stephen and Good for all those who are at the present being persecuted, beheaded, burned alive, enslaved and impaled for their faith…and a Friday that is Good for you and me today.  Because Death was overcome not by party-hopping on Sundays, but rather on a dark Friday of the Cross that was very Good indeed.

The message “Palm Sunday, Party-Hopping, and the Real Work of God” was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on March 29, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.  You can listen on YouTube at http://youtu.be/X9IOD1GcFQg

For those of you who have been following our sermon series at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine (WI) on the Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles, you’ll recall we’re in the midst of Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin.  I had a week off from sermon writing but will include a text version to keep the momentum going as Stephen works his way to deliver the one-two punch line next week.

Stephen’s Speech: Remember Moses 

Acts 7:17 “As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased.  18 Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. 19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die. 20 “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house. 21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. 23 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26 The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’ 27 “But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons. 30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31 When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord’s voice: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. 33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’ 35 “This is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He led them out of Egypt and did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert. 

If you’ll recall, the first martyr of the Church, Stephen, is in the middle of his powerful self-defense speech in front of the Sanhedrin.  Accusations have been leveled against him.  Charges that Stephen was both blaspheming the temple (this holy place) and the Law (customs of Moses).

Stephen has been pointing out that some of God’s greatest work has been bringing people out…to bring people in.  Out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.  This holy land hasn’t always been where God is at work.  God did some of His best work back in Egypt and on a slow timetable.  Long before the Law was ever given to Moses.

In fact, on the manmade time table of Moses, v 23, the people rejected him, the Sanhedrin’s beloved Moses.  Deliverance—at the time–just didn’t look like what God was bringing through the actions of the great leader Moses.

But God was in it and He had His own timetable.  After God appeared to Moses in a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai where the Law would be given, God sent Moses back to Egypt.  Sometimes, God’s greatest work has been bringing people out (of slavery) to bring people in (to freedom).  Out of pagan Egypt and into a covenant community, delivered miraculously, and a people group who would later receive the Law to teach them how to be a holy people worthy of being God’s treasured possession.

Listening to God rather than man hasn’t been mankind’s strongest suit.  Adam didn’t do it right.  The patriarchs didn’t do it.  Even Moses, beloved Moses, was rushing things along and taking matters into his own hands.  It didn’t go well until it was God’s timing and not Moses’.  Look at it this way: If God’s timing was the final second of the game at age 80 for Moses, Moses wanted to run on the field during half time at age 40.  God is never late and seldom does things early.  Even then, after crossing the Red Sea, Moses still ended up wandering about in overtime for another 40 years because the people rebelled against God.   Rebellion.  All too familiar a story.

So what things can we take home from Stephen’s ongoing defense?

1. First, in the proper context of Stephen’s speech, he’s pointing out to the Sanhedrin that Moses didn’t start on God’s timetable.  And then their beloved Moses was rejected on his first visit, if you will, when he tried to deliver them in his own way and in his own strength.  But when he returned on God’s timetable, that’s when he’d deliver the Israelites up and out and they’d follow God (sort of…even after being delivered through a miraculous means!)
2. Second, God does some of His greatest work in the territory of sinners to bring them out in order to bring them into a community of the delivered.  God’s ways are not our ways.  His timing is not our timing.  It’s better to trust Him all the way to the final moment of the game than to try to outperform Him as part of the marching band at half-time.
3. And finally, while listening to God is not always our strongest suit, it’s infinitely preferable to our listening to man.

Stephen is peaking the curiosity of the Sanhedrin in advance of the big wrap-up.  They don’t know it yet, but Stephen is about to turn the tables on them and point out that if anyone is guilty before God, it’s them.  They’re the guilty ones.

They are guilty for not having recognized God’s Deliverer,

in God’s timing to bring about the real holy place,

through the real Savior, Jesus Christ!

We are no less guilty today.  We have all the information we need, if we’ll only heed it.  We can decide to accept Christ on the basis of His first visit because when He returns for a second visit, it’s going to be Promised Land time!  Yet, a whole lot of people will be caught dabbling and dying in the wilderness.  We can choose to trust that God’s timing and His ways are perfect even when they don’t look like it to us.  You see, the problem is never with God.  It’s always with me and you.

So as our season of Lent is wrapping up for the big finish of the empty tomb, let’s be found faithful and humble.  Let’s be found looking and waiting for His ways and His timing.  Let’s be found as ones who are waiting for the Second visit of Christ—His Return—with eagerness and faith.

We’re in the Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles and we’re catching up with Stephen.  The first martyr of the Church is in the midst of his speech before the Sanhedrin before he gets stoned to death.  He’s on trial for speaking against the temple (“this holy place”) and against the customs of Moses (the Law).  Of course, the accusations are false, but as is so often (especially these days!), the truth doesn’t seem to matter.  Stephen takes the words of Christ seriously when Jesus said what is recorded in John 15:

John 15: 18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

Stephen is following Christ.  He’s a true disciple.  So he continues delivering a powerful speech recorded for us in Acts 7 and today, he’s telling the story of one of the favorite sons of the Jews: Joseph.

If you’ll recall, Stephen is artfully leading the Sanhedrin in agreement with him and is delivering a few “ouch” lines along the way.  Ones designed to prick the consciences of his listening audience, even if it will produce no change of heart, just as Jesus said.  Sometimes these things are simply evidence for the trial to beat all trials, the one that comes at the end of time: the one before the White Throne of Judgment in the last day.  Being proclaimed “guilty of sin” will require proof and refusal to obey Christ provides sufficient evidence every time.  Refusal to see that Jesus came as Deliverer has been the latest—and most striking example—of a worldly tradition going way back to the patriarchs.  Rejecting God’s chosen ones has a long pattern.

So Stephen, obeying Christ to the very end, recalls the favorite son of the Jews: Joseph.  He was the favorite son of the patriarch Jacob who was also known as Israel.  If you’ve read or heard his story in Genesis or even seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, you have a sense for his story.

What may not be clear from the theatrical version often described as a heart-rending tale of reconciliation among brothers, the real lesson is the one that Stephen intends to point out: 

The Jewish religious leaders have chronically rejected the one who will deliver them.

The Jewish religious leaders have chronically rejected the one who will deliver them, such is the case with Christ and such is the case with favorite son Joseph….who might be called a “type of Christ”…a foreshadowing, a prototype, one in the pattern that will be perfectly shown in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Keep in mind that this upcoming history of Joseph is all in the context of Stephen answering the accusations that he was speaking against the temple and against the Law.  The false accusations made against Stephen.

Acts 7:9 “Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt.”

The patriarchs Stephen is referring to are the 11 other tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob, the brothers of Joseph listed in Genesis 35:22-26. 

These patriarchs sold 17 year old Joseph into slavery because he was kind of a brat, first off tattling on his brothers and then telling his brothers about the dreams he’s been having not due to a spicy falafel.  In his dreams, his brothers will bow to him.  Their sheaves of grain will bow to his sheaf.  Their sun, moon, and 11 stars will bow to him and now it’s not just brothers but mom and dad too!  In the musical about Joseph, the brothers sing,  “Not only is he tactless but he’s also rather dim, for there’s 11 of us and there’s only 1 of him.”

Stephen’s point in bringing up Joseph is that 1 was deliverer, the other 11 tribes were the rest of Israel. 

• Who was in the holy land?  The 11.
• Who was sold into slavery?  The one: Joseph.
• Where did Joseph get sold?  Egypt!  Outside of the holy land that the Sanhedrin are having a fit about, and moreover, the heart of pagan territory!

As our Acts passage continues:  9b But God was with him 10 and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.

God was with him.  Yup.  In pagan territory.  God was with him and made Joseph ruler over all the economics of Egypt and Joseph’s wisdom may not have prevented the languishing crops, but it did preserve the Egyptians through it.  Because God was with Joseph.

God was with Joseph in Egypt, but in the Holy Land, God has allowed a devastating famine.  Pagan territory? We’ve got Joseph and grain.  In the Holy Land, nothing but 11 starving brothers and their families.

God was with Joseph and so the 11 brothers, the patriarch Jacob the father and all his extended family head to Egypt to get food, starting with the 11 brothers, the sons of Israel. 

Why is there food?  Because Joseph the dreamer, the rejected deliverer had been sent there ahead. By God.

11 “Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could not find food. 12 When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit.

Pause in the action.  Time out.  Pay attention.  The first visit.  Just like Jesus had a first visit.  Joseph recognized his brothers, but they didn’t know him.  On the first visit.  Continuing…

13 On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. 14 After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all. 15 Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died. 16 Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.

Stephen brings up Joseph because he’s a type of Christ.  We haven’t had a second visit from Jesus yet.  That will be what we call the Return of Christ, the Second Coming.  At which point, Scripture tells us that two things are going to happen:

(1) Philippians 2: 8 And being found in appearance as a man, [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  People are going to bow down, just like the brothers did in front of Joseph only this time, it’s for keeps.

(2) Zechariah 12: 10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself”…People are going to be mourning, crying unstoppably, grieving as for an only child!  People’s hearts will be broken because they know they have done.  This is a prophecy about Jesus that is yet to be fulfilled.  It will happen at the second visit when He reveals Himself as King of Kings and Lord of Lords!  Prophecy that looks much like the Joseph story…because Joseph is a type of Christ.

At this point in Stephen’s sermon, he knows that the Sanhedrin knows all this history, even what he didn’t state explicitly !  They know their Scriptures!  First visit.  Second visit.  These are details of the Word of God that are not lost on the Sanhedrin!

But Joseph was only a “type of Christ.”  He was not the Christ, only a foreshadowing of the One to come.  Jesus was and is the Christ!

• Joseph was a type of Christ because he was among the brothers but was singled out and rejected.
• Joseph was a type of Christ because he suffered unjustly!
• Joseph was a type of Christ because he was sent as God’s chosen instrument for deliverance of a people who were famished and destitute, and who could not save themselves.
• Joseph was a type of Christ because he was not recognized by his brothers until…he revealed himself!
• Joseph was a type of Christ because he did this all—outside of the holy land, outside of the temple, outside of the Law of Moses…because he was …Pharaoh’s #2 guy…long before Moses who would carry Joseph’s bones out of Egypt.

So regarding the accusations of speaking against this holy place and the customs of Moses, God has done some of His greatest work in foreign lands, even pagan lands and before the Law.  Doing things outside of what man would think is wise… is often God’s way.

Joseph whose history the Sanhedrin knows even said as much:

Genesis 50:15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. 18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. 19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. 22 Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father’s family. He lived a hundred and ten years 23 and saw the third generation of Ephraim’s children. Also the children of Makir son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph’s knees. 24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” 25 And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

God will come to their aid…in Egypt!  God will deliver them out…remember from last week, God told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years?  At the end of that 400 years of God will have blessed the Hebrews with great land, flocks, and numbers.  But He also allowed them to be enslaved, Moses will lead these people out in the Great Exodus.  Moses will form another in the line of people who sets a pattern of deliverance, but we’ll leave that for next week.

In the meantime, what are the take home lessons for you and me?

1. We must be careful not to put too much emphasis on what goes on INSIDE the walls of the church.  Deliverance is primarily done from the outside to bring people in.
2. We must be on the lookout for God’s ways in saving and be quick to recognize where God is at work, often in places we don’t expect or through unlikely people.
3. We must remember that God is doing things not only for the benefit of the Church but also for the witness to the entire world!  Pharaoh learned Joseph’s identity was more than just an interpreter of dreams.  Witness in pagan territory is our job right now
4. And finally, we can see the wisdom of building off of what other people know, teaching them deeply from the Word which turns us from wimps to radicals.  We cannot be ashamed of the Gospel.

Because someday Jesus will make His second visit.  Until then there’s still time to witness, when He comes on the clouds it will be too late.  Let’s not just recognize a type of Christ.  Let’s recognize Him as the real deal.

The story of Joseph told by Stephen (the 1st martyr of the Church) is more than just a nice story of reconciliation among brothers.  Stephen presents Joseph as a “type of Christ,” a foreshadowing of Jesus.  This message was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on March 15, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.   You can listen on YouTube by clicking on this link.

What would you do if you were accused of a crime as an innocent person?  That’s what Stephen faced.  What would you do if you were falsely accused?  Would you put up the best defense you possibly could?  That’s what Stephen did.  He’s dragged before the Sanhedrin and since they couldn’t stand up to his arguments and his angel face, boom!

Acts 6:13 They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”

Acts 7:1 Then the high priest asked him, “Are these charges true?”

“Are these charges true?” says the high priest.  (Seriously?  The high priest knows these are false witnesses!  Of course their charges aren’t true, right?)  “Are these charges true?”  It’s like the proverbial loaded question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”  Likewise in this case, a simple Yes-or-No answer just won’t do.

Rather than evading the question, Stephen takes them deeper into their question in order to point out two important considerations:

1. When you start from the wrong place, don’t be surprised if your digging doesn’t bring you to the right conclusion.
2. Customs and traditions have their place, but they are not the basis for whether God is being honored

These two considerations form the major themes, the Cliffs Notes, if you will, to the early part of Stephen’s defense. 

So first, when you start from the wrong place, don’t be surprised if your digging doesn’t bring you to the right conclusion.

It reminds me of that scene from Indiana Jones in Raiders the Lost Ark where they’re in Egypt and they’re trying to dig up the Ark of the Covenant.  He and his coworkers are speaking with an old man who reads the back of a medallion that states part of the staff on which the medallion will sit must be removed before using it.  The enemy, a man named Balloq, was already digging away having used a replica of the medallion to find the precise digging location.  But there was a problem:

• Indiana: Balloq’s medallion only had writing on one side? You sure about that?
• Sallah: Positive!
• Indiana: Balloq’s staff is too long.
• Indiana, Sallah: They’re digging in the wrong place!

When you start digging in the wrong spot don’t be surprised if you come up empty and end with the wrong conclusion.  That’s what Stephen will show today in his answer.  It’s not a simple yes or no because the high priest is starting from the wrong spot (the temple) when he should be starting with worship of God.

That’s the situation with the temple, but what about the second part of the accusation:  the customs of Moses?  Customs and traditions have their place, but they shouldn’t be the basis for whether God is being honored.

Traditions can lead us down the wrong path too.  The Sanhedrin and all the religious leaders had accepted these customs as true by way of tradition that didn’t hold water in reality.

It reminds me of the woman who was preparing a ham at Easter and her little daughter asked her, “Mommy, why do you cut the end off the ham?”  The mother said, “I don’t know.  My mother always did it.”  So the next time they were at grandma’s house, they asked her “Why do you cut the end off the ham?” and she said, “I don’t know.  My mother always did it.”  So great grandma came to dinner that afternoon and they all asked her, “Why do you cut the end off the ham?” and she said, “Because I never had a pan big enough otherwise.”  We can easily make assumptions based upon traditions that don’t hold up under examination of the truth and the facts.

So Stephen begins his defense against false accusations.  His defense is not a politician’s evading of the question because Stephen doesn’t want to escape.  He wants to be guilty as charged to a different accusation!

Stephen wants to be found guilty of the true accusation of following Jesus of Nazareth!

When it comes to our being Christians, if our lives were on trial and our actions as exhibits in a criminal trial, would our lives show enough evidence to convict us as Bible-believing Christians?  Stephen wants to be convicted of being a genuine disciple of Jesus.

So, with all that as our Cliffs Notes to Stephen’s speech so you can follow along, we’ll see why his defense is much longer than a simple yes or no answer. Stephen’s accusers

Acts 6:13 They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”

And the question “Are these charges true?”

2 To this [Stephen] replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me!

Remember Peter’s speech at Pentecost and how he began by using words of inclusion?  Stephen is doing the same thing, returning to their Jewish roots, his and theirs:  the patriarchs, the great founding fathers and heroes of the Jewish people.  It gives common ground and reasons for them to agree.  Keeping the customer agreeing is always good salesmanship and good apologetics and after all, who wouldn’t agree with:

2 To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.  3 ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’

The Sanhedrin don’t realize it yet, but Stephen points out that the temple he’s being accused of maligning hasn’t always been around, that worship of God happened long before that and in a variety of places.  Clearly worship of God happened even before the land was the land of the Jews.

How could worship happen only at a holy place, a temple in Jerusalem, when God appeared to Abraham to start the faith in Mesopotamia, not even here in Jerusalem?

So Stephen continues:  4 “So [Abraham] left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.  5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.

Worship happened in Mesopotamia in the Chaldeans, and later in Haran.  Furthermore, God was worshiped by Abraham, the great patriarch, even before the second patriarch, Isaac, was even born.  God has been worshiped in foreign lands long before He was worshiped in Jerusalem, even before Israel was Israel.  Jacob the patriarch of the 12 tribes hadn’t even been born yet.  (As a teaser for weeks to come, this is setting the stage for the Gospel going to the Gentile world.)

Worship of God was not restricted then, why should it be restricted now… to a place?

Stephen goes on telling their history and speaking logic:  6 God spoke to [Abraham] in this way: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 7 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’

That’s Egypt that God was talking about when He referred to “the country…and the nation”.  The same Egypt where Moses would be born.  But at the time God promised it, there was no Moses.   More than 400 years spanned the time told to Abraham from the enslavement to the exodus which is a long time after Abraham.

You see, what’s happening is that Stephen is getting the Sanhedrin to agree with the history of the Jews and is leading them to a “yes” answer to the real question of where worship takes place: God is too big to be contained in a temple.

 God is too big to be contained in a temple.

But what about that whole idea of the customs of Moses?  Do you, Stephen have a defense for that?

Worship at the temple had just become so much of a routine for the Jewish leaders that they never stopped to consider that worship of God had been going on for a really long time in many different places before the temple was ever even built!  And the customs of Moses didn’t even show up for many years after the patriarchs.  The customs just developed after Moses was leader.  The Law itself was good, but by now, a bunch of things were added to the Law to where the spirit of the Law was muddled. People followed the customs because of tradition.

It reminds me of that scene from A Few Good Men where Defense Attorney Kaffee is offering a rebuttal to Jack Ross’s assertion that Code Reds aren’t part of a Marine’s obligation at Gitmo because it’s not in the book.  On the stand is Cpl. Barnes.

• Kaffee: Corporal, would you turn to the page in this book that says where the mess hall is, please.
• Cpl. Barnes: Well, Lt. Kaffee, that’s not in the book, sir.
• Kaffee: You mean to say in all your time at Gitmo you’ve never had a meal?
• Cpl. Barnes: No, sir. Three squares a day, sir.
• Kaffee: I don’t understand. How did you know where the mess hall was if it’s not in this book?
• Cpl. Barnes: Well, I guess I just followed the crowd at chow time, sir.

We just follow the crowd at worship time.  There are traditions and customs given us by God in His Word and ones we’ve just followed because the people ahead of us did them.  But there are some given by God directly and the Law eventually through Moses, long after Abraham.

8 Then [God] gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision.  And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

The Sanhedrin could not argue with Stephen’s recounting of early Jewish history.  They were probably nodding in agreement all along, completely unaware that Stephen’s argument was building the case and leading them to a place where they must acknowledge this truth:  worship of God, is not something new, or local, or geographical.  Stephen is reclaiming worship that is something very old.  It’s revolutionary…because it bucked with current tradition….but it was not a new truth at all.

The Bible is like that. 

Filled with truths we rediscover anew with extended reading.

God is not confined to a geographical land, or a temple made by human hands.  God has never set up holy sites or shrines like people will set up to various fake deities.  So the accusation regarding the destruction of the temple wasn’t blasphemy because it never contained God to begin with.  It was just a building. God is too big and the temple itself was never to substitute for God.

When you stop to think about a pilgrimage, like Muslims to Mecca, what does that say about their view of their god? Small. Local. Not a god at all.  Pilgrimages and temples and customs risk substituting something we can do for who God is. Our God is not manmade!  The temple?  Just a place to worship alongside others.  Customs of Moses? Just things to help us remember how to worship.  Neither one is an acceptable substitute for the living God and the outreaching Gospel of Good News to an entire world–a universe really– in which God is at work and worthy of worship.

So what about us?  I read a blog post this past week from a pastor about the painful process of closing a church. Pastor John Frye writes,

Last Sunday the local church where I have served as pastor for nine years closed…the decision to close was a “severe mercy.” Severe in that it is always hard to end a church’s history and merciful because the faithful folks who hung in to the end were fatigued and needed a clear, sharp decision about their future….As the ministry entered into its final two years, issues in the church’s DNA, frictions with members, and the inability of the church to negotiate healthy change, the church entered into what our denomination calls an “at risk” status. Using a medical metaphor, the church went into cardiac arrest and was on life support in the last eight months to a year. It’s hard to get a church on life support to become more missional. Energy levels drop and morale flounders. I came to a hard realization: churches do die and this one was dying under my care.

It was a longstanding church in a different denomination.  The people were exhausted.  Nice, but exhausted.  There was no missional, outward looking to share the Gospel.  Nice people with a largely empty building and rather empty traditions, a sort of temple-and-customs-of-Moses.  Poor substitutes for the Living God.

What about us?  Worship of God will go on, even if Plymouth were to close its doors, so long as there are people whose focus is on worship.  I will continue to worship God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) wherever I can as would be the case for all who worship God.  Much of what we do isn’t related to worship at all.  It’s not just us.  It’s at many, if not most, if not all churches in the US.

In America, in our largely comfortable lives, we’re comfortable with all temple and customs of Moses and remarkably little of the Spirit of God who brings life to the Church.

The famous author AW Tozer once said,

If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

This is what is radical about Stephen’s defense: worship has always been about God and wherever we engage in true worship of Him—in spirit and in truth, the kind of worshipers the Father seeks, Jesus says (John 4:23).  This type of worship?  The world would notice if we stopped. At least that’s how the early church was.  The temple?  The customs of Moses?  Stephen, with his knowledge of the Scriptures and Jewish history, his deep faith, and his radical defense… Stephen wanted to be “Guilty as Charged,” of worshiping God in spirit and in truth which beats the temple and Moses any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Let’s pray.

In Part 1 of Stephen’s Defense (Acts 6:13-7:8), Stephen begins addressing the accusations of blasphemy against the temple and the customs of Moses.  This message was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on March 8, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.  You can listen to the audio on YouTube by clicking this link  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2jBBWLa8tY&feature=youtu.be