Come
Commentary
Object:
When we consider all of the things that could happen to us in our encounters with life, it is no wonder that we may sometimes want to run away and hide from it. The promise that God comes to meet us in each new moment of life invites us to meet life expectantly.
Acts 16:16-34
This passage describes a happening on Paul's third missionary journey. His evangelistic mission to the Gentile world was well under way. Paul had dreamed of a man from Macedonia saying, "Come over and help us" (Acts 16:6-10). Paul and Silas and Luke sailed from Troas and eventually came to Philippi. (Apparently Luke was with them on the journey since the writer reports the happenings in Acts 16:11-18 in the third person plural "we," but not the experience in the prison.)
The first encounter in Philippi is a successful one. Paul and the others went to a place that they had heard was a place of prayer and spoke to some women who were gathered there. There they met Lydia, a businesswoman who was apparently a religious seeker. She eagerly received the message that Paul preached, was converted, was baptized, and offered hospitality to the evangelists. She eventually became a leader in the church.
The second encounter was stormy. They went into the city and encountered there a young girl who had a demon; we can suppose that meant a mental illness that enabled her to tell fortunes. She was a slave and her owners gained some profit from her gift/affliction. She followed the evangelists, telling all who would listen that they were special. This annoyed Paul so he cast out the demon. He set the girl free from her affliction, but he cost her owners a source of income. That was not a popular thing to do. They stirred up a commotion that resulted in Paul and Silas being put in prison. But at midnight there was an earthquake that miraculously set Paul and Silas free.
The jailer came running and was about to kill himself, because any jailer who allowed a prisoner to escape was subject to execution. Paul stopped him. The jailer was in a panic. He must have known that the God whom his prisoners represented was God indeed. He asked, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul answered: "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household." It seems that this question and this answer is the real point of this story. In the alternate application below, we will think together about how this question and answer can be interpreted to our congregations.
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
These brief verses need very badly to be put into context for their meaning to come through.
The book of Revelation is a correspondence written by John, an early church leader and prophet who had been arrested and imprisoned for having professed faith in Jesus Christ. He wrote to members of the churches in the Roman province of Asia who were coping with the possibility of a similar fate. He wrote to encourage his fellow Christians to remain faithful to their commitment to Christ. He wrote in a unique literary style that the Romans would not understand (and that we don't understand either) but that his friends would understand. The message was this: You are facing times of great trials as history goes through some times of unbelievable turmoil. But hold on to your faith because the God in whom you believe is guiding history and will bring it to an ultimate victory for all that is good.
It has been suggested that the book was actually written to be read aloud, in its entirety, in the church, as a part of a very unique worship experience (Eugene Boring, Interpretation, A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching [John Knox Press, 1989]). The prophet begins by addressing letters from the living Christ to each of the seven churches, having to do with their own congregational lives. Then, at a turning point in the book, John is invited to come up into the heavenly presence of God to be shown "what must take place after this." John describes a series of dramatic visions, each using symbolic language that the hearers would understand, to explain things that were to happen in a series of periods in history. There are images of oppression and suffering and of great cosmic conflicts, and finally images of a victory for God and of a new era that God is working to bring into being. Try reading the book of Revelation through as if it were being read aloud and dramatically in a congregation. The experience must have been awesome.
Then the description of the visions is over. The brief verses of our text come from the time when the reader and the hearers have come "back down to earth" and back into their own time and place. It is time for them to make a decision about how they will respond to all that has been shown to them. In the last few verses of the correspondence, the hearers are assured that the message has come from the living Christ, and that it is he who will be coming to meet them in the challenging experiences and historical happenings that are about to come to them, and that he would be coming soon. The hearers are invited to come to meet him with faith. Finally the hearers respond, "Amen. Come Lord Jesus."
We who hear the message today live with a different mental picture of the shape of reality. Few of us actually expect the world to come to an end in the near future. But the message the prophet really wants to communicate to us is a belief that God is alive and at work in the experiences of our lives and in the happenings of our history and that God is working to save us from all that is destructive and move us toward something better. That is an aspect of the biblical faith that we are invited to dare to carry over into our own lives.
We too are confronted with life situations that are threatening and demanding and challenging. We are invited to go to meet them, trusting that God will be at work in them, and look for ways to work with God for the accomplishment of God's good purpose. Sometimes the challenges of the future we see coming to meet us may seem so threatening that we may want to run away from life. But our faith invites us to take courage and to say, "Come Lord Jesus." That response can lead us into an entirely new and exciting way of relating to life.
John 17:20-26
The gospel according to John is different from the other gospels because the author shares with us some memories and beliefs about Jesus that were especially important to the early Christian community to which he belonged. We are the richer for this because, as he said, "If every one of the things that Jesus did were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25).
One of the most precious of these witnesses that is unique to John's gospel is the account of the long conversation Jesus had with his disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem the night before he died. In that conversation, Jesus told the disciples, and us, that he had come from God the Father to make God known to us so that we can come into a relationship with God the Father like his own relationship with him, a relationship of trust and loving obedience. It is in that relationship with God that fullness of life, eternal life, is to be found. He was about to return to the Father to prepare a place for us, but he was sending the disciples, and us, into the world to make known the things Jesus made known and to open to all people the possibility of fullness of life. The world may be hostile to them. But God will send his Spirit to enable them to be faithful and to make the witness that is the hope of the world.
Our text for today is a part of the prayer that Jesus prays for his church. Like a good pastoral counselor, Jesus ends the conversation by gathering up all of the important things that have been shared and lifting them up to God. He prays that the followers can be kept in the relationship into which he has called them. He prays that, as the followers go into the world to carry on the work he has begun, they may be kept from falling. Finally, he prays for the unity of the church; that his followers may be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one. One of the most arresting things about this prayer is that Jesus makes it clear that he is praying not only for the eleven people who are there with him, but also for all who will be brought into relationship with God through their witness. Jesus prays this prayer for us.
The scholar Gerald Sloyan wrote that the gospel according to John was for the author "a proclamation in story form, not a work of history." We should seek to proclaim what John undertook to proclaim (Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching [John Knox Press, 1988], p. 10).
Application
Acts 16:16-34. When the lectionary invites us to preach from the book of Revelation it is a good thing to accept the invitation. Many of our people have been turned off by fanatical interpretations of the book that present it as a countdown to the end of human history and intentionally inspire fear and sometimes even hate. People will be eager to hear an interpretation that puts the book in a realistic setting and communicates the message of hope and courage that it is intended to share.
The summary of the message can be: "God is at work in the challenging experiences of our lives and in the crisis situations in history to move us and our world toward the fulfillment of God's good purpose." The hoped-for response should be courage to go to meet life in faith.
An introduction might be a question: "When you are confronted with a challenging situation in life, what are you more likely to want to say to it? Are you more likely to want to say, 'Go away'? Or are you more likely to say, 'Come on'?" That can make a big difference in the way you live your life. (If you have a really good story that confronts people with the same question, use it instead.)
Having raised the issue, you may want to use the interpretation of the Revelation text above as the next segment of your sermon.
Next, you need to bring the whole discussion to bear upon the important present experiences of the congregation. What are the things going on in their lives that may be making them want to run away from life? What are the things going on in the world, reported on the local and world news that generate anxiety or anger? Use verbal pictures of concrete situations with which the people are familiar, not abstractions.
One of the great themes of the Bible is a belief that God is at work in life and history to save. This is the belief upon which the books of history and the messages of the prophets in the Old Testament are based. This is what is inherent in the New Testament message about the kingdom of God. It is also the essence of the message of the book of Revelation. (It may be necessary to explain that does not mean God is sitting at a heavenly control panel making everything happen. God has put us into an open history full of good and bad possibilities. God is working to realize the good possibilities and wants us to work with him.)
Now, it will be important to help the people visualize what it would be like to incorporate that belief into their own way of relating to life. Help them see what difference it will make.
A reflection on the gospel lesson can be meaningful here. Our gospel lesson for today is a part of the prayer Jesus prayed for his followers on the night before he died. He was about to go away and to leave the mission they had shared in their hands. Jesus included you in that prayer. Did you know that Jesus prayed for you? He said he was praying not only for those who were gathered around him in the upper room, but also for those who would believe through their witness. That includes you. And he prayed a prayer much like the prayer a loving parent might pray for a child who was going away for military service. He did not pray that you would be taken out of the world. The purpose of your life is to be accomplished in the world. But he prayed that God will keep you from falling.
Can all of this help you to believe that the living Christ will be coming to meet you in all of the new and challenging experiences of your life? Can you turn to face the life that is coming to meet you and to say, "Come, Lord Jesus"? If you can, it will make a big difference in your life.
An Alternate Application
"What Must I Do?" "What must I do to be saved?" "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" (Acts 16:30-31). Nothing goes more directly to the heart of the Christian message than this question and answer. Yet they have come to be customarily interpreted in such a shallow way that they have been robbed of much of their meaning and their power. Many people hear the Christian faith interpreted as a simple, intellectual transaction that buys a person a pardon for sins and a reservation in heaven. Some delight in the simplicity of a religion that can make everything okay without really changing anything. Others hear and think "You've got to be kidding!" and walk away. We can do our hearers a great favor by helping them understand the enormous depth of meaning in these words.
What does it mean to want to be saved? It means a yearning so deep that we will probably never have thought of it in terms of "wanting to be saved." It is a yearning for wholeness, a fullness of life that is just not there. It may indeed come as a person reckons with the limitedness of his or her life, but it may just as well come when we think about life as we have it and think about life as we think it should be in the here and now. All sorts of different things can separate us from that yearned-for life: fear, hate, greed, frustrated ambitions, guilt, and other things that oppress us from within. There may be other forces that oppress us from without. The biblical meaning of salvation has to do with God saving us from those things that separate us from fullness of life and saving us to the life for which God created us. One aspect of that life is a hope that reaches beyond this life. But another aspect is a changed life here and now, specifically the ability to live in faith and in love. That is the yearning to which Paul's answer responds.
The promise depends upon the discovery of a reality that may not have yet been a part of our experience of life and is a greater reality that comes to meet us in each interaction with life, a reality whose interactions with us are our interactions with life, the reality of God. That reality has been made known to us through one person, a real person who once lived in the same world in which we live and through the event that was his life. That one has shown us that the greater reality who is God relates to us in all of our interactions with life/God in love. That one has shown us that God is always reaching out to us in love and interacting with us in ways that will set us free from the things that oppress us and move us toward the fullness of life for which we were created. The stories that are told about his life and the witnesses of those whose lives have been changed by interactions with him can make Jesus known. There must be some coming to know this Jesus and the greater reality he represents before we can "believe" in him.
With that yearning and that discovery in place, then we can believe. But believing is not just an intellectual assent to the ideas that there is a God and that he has forgiven your sins. Believing is an entirely new way of relating to life and to the God who comes to meet us in life. It is relating to God and to life in a basic trust that sets us free and in a commitment that is real love and in an ongoing interaction with God that makes each interaction with life an occasion for a life-changing interaction with God. If you believe in the Lord Jesus in that way, your life will be changed. You will indeed be saved.
I hope that as you open up the meaning of the familiar words of Paul's invitation, people will discover in them an exciting new possibility that they had not known before.
(I invite you to explore these concepts in my books The Message of Salvation [Barnes and Noble online PubIt! publication], or Who Do You Say That I Am: Reflections on Jesus, A Personal Reader [Shyth & Helwys, 2002]).
Acts 16:16-34
This passage describes a happening on Paul's third missionary journey. His evangelistic mission to the Gentile world was well under way. Paul had dreamed of a man from Macedonia saying, "Come over and help us" (Acts 16:6-10). Paul and Silas and Luke sailed from Troas and eventually came to Philippi. (Apparently Luke was with them on the journey since the writer reports the happenings in Acts 16:11-18 in the third person plural "we," but not the experience in the prison.)
The first encounter in Philippi is a successful one. Paul and the others went to a place that they had heard was a place of prayer and spoke to some women who were gathered there. There they met Lydia, a businesswoman who was apparently a religious seeker. She eagerly received the message that Paul preached, was converted, was baptized, and offered hospitality to the evangelists. She eventually became a leader in the church.
The second encounter was stormy. They went into the city and encountered there a young girl who had a demon; we can suppose that meant a mental illness that enabled her to tell fortunes. She was a slave and her owners gained some profit from her gift/affliction. She followed the evangelists, telling all who would listen that they were special. This annoyed Paul so he cast out the demon. He set the girl free from her affliction, but he cost her owners a source of income. That was not a popular thing to do. They stirred up a commotion that resulted in Paul and Silas being put in prison. But at midnight there was an earthquake that miraculously set Paul and Silas free.
The jailer came running and was about to kill himself, because any jailer who allowed a prisoner to escape was subject to execution. Paul stopped him. The jailer was in a panic. He must have known that the God whom his prisoners represented was God indeed. He asked, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul answered: "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household." It seems that this question and this answer is the real point of this story. In the alternate application below, we will think together about how this question and answer can be interpreted to our congregations.
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
These brief verses need very badly to be put into context for their meaning to come through.
The book of Revelation is a correspondence written by John, an early church leader and prophet who had been arrested and imprisoned for having professed faith in Jesus Christ. He wrote to members of the churches in the Roman province of Asia who were coping with the possibility of a similar fate. He wrote to encourage his fellow Christians to remain faithful to their commitment to Christ. He wrote in a unique literary style that the Romans would not understand (and that we don't understand either) but that his friends would understand. The message was this: You are facing times of great trials as history goes through some times of unbelievable turmoil. But hold on to your faith because the God in whom you believe is guiding history and will bring it to an ultimate victory for all that is good.
It has been suggested that the book was actually written to be read aloud, in its entirety, in the church, as a part of a very unique worship experience (Eugene Boring, Interpretation, A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching [John Knox Press, 1989]). The prophet begins by addressing letters from the living Christ to each of the seven churches, having to do with their own congregational lives. Then, at a turning point in the book, John is invited to come up into the heavenly presence of God to be shown "what must take place after this." John describes a series of dramatic visions, each using symbolic language that the hearers would understand, to explain things that were to happen in a series of periods in history. There are images of oppression and suffering and of great cosmic conflicts, and finally images of a victory for God and of a new era that God is working to bring into being. Try reading the book of Revelation through as if it were being read aloud and dramatically in a congregation. The experience must have been awesome.
Then the description of the visions is over. The brief verses of our text come from the time when the reader and the hearers have come "back down to earth" and back into their own time and place. It is time for them to make a decision about how they will respond to all that has been shown to them. In the last few verses of the correspondence, the hearers are assured that the message has come from the living Christ, and that it is he who will be coming to meet them in the challenging experiences and historical happenings that are about to come to them, and that he would be coming soon. The hearers are invited to come to meet him with faith. Finally the hearers respond, "Amen. Come Lord Jesus."
We who hear the message today live with a different mental picture of the shape of reality. Few of us actually expect the world to come to an end in the near future. But the message the prophet really wants to communicate to us is a belief that God is alive and at work in the experiences of our lives and in the happenings of our history and that God is working to save us from all that is destructive and move us toward something better. That is an aspect of the biblical faith that we are invited to dare to carry over into our own lives.
We too are confronted with life situations that are threatening and demanding and challenging. We are invited to go to meet them, trusting that God will be at work in them, and look for ways to work with God for the accomplishment of God's good purpose. Sometimes the challenges of the future we see coming to meet us may seem so threatening that we may want to run away from life. But our faith invites us to take courage and to say, "Come Lord Jesus." That response can lead us into an entirely new and exciting way of relating to life.
John 17:20-26
The gospel according to John is different from the other gospels because the author shares with us some memories and beliefs about Jesus that were especially important to the early Christian community to which he belonged. We are the richer for this because, as he said, "If every one of the things that Jesus did were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25).
One of the most precious of these witnesses that is unique to John's gospel is the account of the long conversation Jesus had with his disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem the night before he died. In that conversation, Jesus told the disciples, and us, that he had come from God the Father to make God known to us so that we can come into a relationship with God the Father like his own relationship with him, a relationship of trust and loving obedience. It is in that relationship with God that fullness of life, eternal life, is to be found. He was about to return to the Father to prepare a place for us, but he was sending the disciples, and us, into the world to make known the things Jesus made known and to open to all people the possibility of fullness of life. The world may be hostile to them. But God will send his Spirit to enable them to be faithful and to make the witness that is the hope of the world.
Our text for today is a part of the prayer that Jesus prays for his church. Like a good pastoral counselor, Jesus ends the conversation by gathering up all of the important things that have been shared and lifting them up to God. He prays that the followers can be kept in the relationship into which he has called them. He prays that, as the followers go into the world to carry on the work he has begun, they may be kept from falling. Finally, he prays for the unity of the church; that his followers may be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one. One of the most arresting things about this prayer is that Jesus makes it clear that he is praying not only for the eleven people who are there with him, but also for all who will be brought into relationship with God through their witness. Jesus prays this prayer for us.
The scholar Gerald Sloyan wrote that the gospel according to John was for the author "a proclamation in story form, not a work of history." We should seek to proclaim what John undertook to proclaim (Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching [John Knox Press, 1988], p. 10).
Application
Acts 16:16-34. When the lectionary invites us to preach from the book of Revelation it is a good thing to accept the invitation. Many of our people have been turned off by fanatical interpretations of the book that present it as a countdown to the end of human history and intentionally inspire fear and sometimes even hate. People will be eager to hear an interpretation that puts the book in a realistic setting and communicates the message of hope and courage that it is intended to share.
The summary of the message can be: "God is at work in the challenging experiences of our lives and in the crisis situations in history to move us and our world toward the fulfillment of God's good purpose." The hoped-for response should be courage to go to meet life in faith.
An introduction might be a question: "When you are confronted with a challenging situation in life, what are you more likely to want to say to it? Are you more likely to want to say, 'Go away'? Or are you more likely to say, 'Come on'?" That can make a big difference in the way you live your life. (If you have a really good story that confronts people with the same question, use it instead.)
Having raised the issue, you may want to use the interpretation of the Revelation text above as the next segment of your sermon.
Next, you need to bring the whole discussion to bear upon the important present experiences of the congregation. What are the things going on in their lives that may be making them want to run away from life? What are the things going on in the world, reported on the local and world news that generate anxiety or anger? Use verbal pictures of concrete situations with which the people are familiar, not abstractions.
One of the great themes of the Bible is a belief that God is at work in life and history to save. This is the belief upon which the books of history and the messages of the prophets in the Old Testament are based. This is what is inherent in the New Testament message about the kingdom of God. It is also the essence of the message of the book of Revelation. (It may be necessary to explain that does not mean God is sitting at a heavenly control panel making everything happen. God has put us into an open history full of good and bad possibilities. God is working to realize the good possibilities and wants us to work with him.)
Now, it will be important to help the people visualize what it would be like to incorporate that belief into their own way of relating to life. Help them see what difference it will make.
A reflection on the gospel lesson can be meaningful here. Our gospel lesson for today is a part of the prayer Jesus prayed for his followers on the night before he died. He was about to go away and to leave the mission they had shared in their hands. Jesus included you in that prayer. Did you know that Jesus prayed for you? He said he was praying not only for those who were gathered around him in the upper room, but also for those who would believe through their witness. That includes you. And he prayed a prayer much like the prayer a loving parent might pray for a child who was going away for military service. He did not pray that you would be taken out of the world. The purpose of your life is to be accomplished in the world. But he prayed that God will keep you from falling.
Can all of this help you to believe that the living Christ will be coming to meet you in all of the new and challenging experiences of your life? Can you turn to face the life that is coming to meet you and to say, "Come, Lord Jesus"? If you can, it will make a big difference in your life.
An Alternate Application
"What Must I Do?" "What must I do to be saved?" "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" (Acts 16:30-31). Nothing goes more directly to the heart of the Christian message than this question and answer. Yet they have come to be customarily interpreted in such a shallow way that they have been robbed of much of their meaning and their power. Many people hear the Christian faith interpreted as a simple, intellectual transaction that buys a person a pardon for sins and a reservation in heaven. Some delight in the simplicity of a religion that can make everything okay without really changing anything. Others hear and think "You've got to be kidding!" and walk away. We can do our hearers a great favor by helping them understand the enormous depth of meaning in these words.
What does it mean to want to be saved? It means a yearning so deep that we will probably never have thought of it in terms of "wanting to be saved." It is a yearning for wholeness, a fullness of life that is just not there. It may indeed come as a person reckons with the limitedness of his or her life, but it may just as well come when we think about life as we have it and think about life as we think it should be in the here and now. All sorts of different things can separate us from that yearned-for life: fear, hate, greed, frustrated ambitions, guilt, and other things that oppress us from within. There may be other forces that oppress us from without. The biblical meaning of salvation has to do with God saving us from those things that separate us from fullness of life and saving us to the life for which God created us. One aspect of that life is a hope that reaches beyond this life. But another aspect is a changed life here and now, specifically the ability to live in faith and in love. That is the yearning to which Paul's answer responds.
The promise depends upon the discovery of a reality that may not have yet been a part of our experience of life and is a greater reality that comes to meet us in each interaction with life, a reality whose interactions with us are our interactions with life, the reality of God. That reality has been made known to us through one person, a real person who once lived in the same world in which we live and through the event that was his life. That one has shown us that the greater reality who is God relates to us in all of our interactions with life/God in love. That one has shown us that God is always reaching out to us in love and interacting with us in ways that will set us free from the things that oppress us and move us toward the fullness of life for which we were created. The stories that are told about his life and the witnesses of those whose lives have been changed by interactions with him can make Jesus known. There must be some coming to know this Jesus and the greater reality he represents before we can "believe" in him.
With that yearning and that discovery in place, then we can believe. But believing is not just an intellectual assent to the ideas that there is a God and that he has forgiven your sins. Believing is an entirely new way of relating to life and to the God who comes to meet us in life. It is relating to God and to life in a basic trust that sets us free and in a commitment that is real love and in an ongoing interaction with God that makes each interaction with life an occasion for a life-changing interaction with God. If you believe in the Lord Jesus in that way, your life will be changed. You will indeed be saved.
I hope that as you open up the meaning of the familiar words of Paul's invitation, people will discover in them an exciting new possibility that they had not known before.
(I invite you to explore these concepts in my books The Message of Salvation [Barnes and Noble online PubIt! publication], or Who Do You Say That I Am: Reflections on Jesus, A Personal Reader [Shyth & Helwys, 2002]).
