I wonder how many of us saw the turtles hatching on Mooloolaba beach. The papers told us that the eggs had been laid. We went to see the area that had been roped off and read the sign about it. And we read about it after it had happened. But we weren't there! We missed the hatching! But if you were there — now that's different!
On the last Sunday of April our family brought a crysallis to church. A grub had been feeding on milkweed cuttings at our place and had turned into a crysallis. That is a fascinating process to watch. The caterpillar makes a little white pad with something out of its mouth and then attaches itself by the tail and hangs there for a couple of days. Then the caterpillar skin splits and with a lot of wriggling comes up the body — just as if it is taking off a T-shirt! Then just when you are wondering how the little creature can finally get rid of it, you see a little black thing come out and attach itself to the white pad. It happens so quickly. It is easy to miss it. And the old skin — that T-shirt — falls off. And in a little while the creature assumes the crysallis shape with its pale green colour and gold spots. Some of you saw the last amazing stage. Already the colours of the butterfly could be seen in the crysallis and you saw the butterfly emerge!
You saw it happen! You were witnesses!
It is so simple being a witness. All you have to do is be there at the right time and you are a witness!
The
disciples of Jesus had been with him for three-and-a-half years now. They had
heard his teaching, seen him healing the sick, watched him die on the cross and
seen him alive from the dead. So, when Jesus was giving his final instructions
in Luke 24, he said about them, "You are witnesses of these things."
They had been there. They had seen them. They knew these facts were true.
Other people had been witnesses too. They had noted the authority by which he taught the people. They knew well that he had healed the sick — though later Jewish writings ascribed this to sorcery.
The facts
of his death were also well known. As might be expected, the Roman authorities
had their records, and the Roman historian, Tacitus
(writing between AD 115-117), mentions the origins of the Christians —
"They got their name from Christ, who was executed by sentence of the
procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. That checked the pernicious
superstition for a short time, but it broke out afresh — not only in Judaea,
where the plague first arose, but in
The
And there were witnesses to the events of what we call Easter Sunday too — though, on Matthew's account, the report of the guard was suppressed with the help of a bribe (Matthew 28.11-15). They knew but weren't telling! But the evidence that was undeniable was the faith of those early disciples that Jesus was alive. This group of cringing cowards suddenly became willing to risk their lives for their conviction that Jesus had truly risen from the dead. The story that they had stolen the body didn't make sense of what they had been and what they became!
So at the end of Luke, Jesus is saying, "You are witnesses of these things..." But at the beginning of Acts, we hear Jesus saying, "But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be witnesses for me..."
They already had the evidence. What were they going to do with it?
The guard had the evidence, but they were deliberately covering it up. They had been paid money to tell a false story.
Telling the truth about Jesus in the city where he had just been executed held real dangers for them. But, after Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, they would be witnesses — announcing the facts, telling out the evidence that Jesus was alive, calling for repentance and a change of life from all their hearers...
So a witness is not just a person who sees and hears, but one who tells what he has seen and heard.
So, in their praying before Pentecost, the disciples believed that someone should be appointed in the place of Judas — "someone must join us as a witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 1.22). Peter wasn't suggesting that they play a game of make-believe to get their quota of twelve witnesses. He meant that someone who had witnessed the risen Lord needed to stand with them in declaring the gospel to the people. (And certainly, they had seen a real connection between the number twelve and the twelve tribes of the Lord's people.) One of the witnesses of the reality of the risen Lord needed to become a witness to the risen Lord.
And on the
day of Pentecost, Peter says, "God raised this very Jesus from death, and
we are all witnesses to this fact" (2.32) — we know it to be true and we
are telling you that it is true! And Peter's message in the
Now it would be so easy for us to get the wrong idea — to think that the task of being witnesses was just for the twelve apostles. Not so — the apostles had a special witness to give, but all believers were to be witnesses. All who have received Jesus as their Saviour and Lord have a unique witness to give to his reality, grace and power in their lives. All need to be able to speak out the truth of God and of what he has done in his Son Jesus Christ.
At the beginning of Acts 6, we are made aware of a particular problem in the early Church. Practical help was being given to Christian widows (there was no social security in those days) and the Greek-speaking Jewish believers believed that their widows were being neglected. So seven helpers were appointed to be in charge of this distribution so that the apostles "will give our full time to prayer and the work of preaching" (v.4).
One of
those appointed was Stephen — described as "a man full of faith and the Holy
Spirit" (v.5). Besides his work of helping, Stephen was a powerful witness
to the Lord Jesus. (So too, by the way, was Philip, one of the other helpers —
Acts 8.4ff.) When some Jews from the outlying provinces started arguing with
Stephen, he spoke with such wisdom that they could not refute him. Instead of
accepting the truth of what Stephen was saying, they bribed some men to spread
the word, "We heard him speaking against Moses and against God!" (v.
11) They stirred up the people, the elders and the
teachers of the Law to a point where they seized Stephen and brought him before
the Council. Then they arranged for false witnesses to say, "This man is
always talking against our sacred
Stephen's defence was a forthright statement of what God had done in their nation's history and the ways in which their ancestors had refused to obey the Lord. Now he charges them — the descendants — with the same rebellious spirit. "How stubborn you are! How heathen your hearts, how deaf you are to God's message! You are just like your ancestors: you too have always resisted the Holy Spirit! Was there any prophet that your ancestors did not persecute? They killed God's messengers, who long ago announced the coming of his righteous Servant. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. You are the ones who received God's law, that was handed down by angels — yet you have not obeyed it!" (7.51-53)
That really stirs their anger. But Stephen goes on. Looking up, he has a glimpse into heaven itself — "Look! I see heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right-hand side of God!" (v.56) You killed Jesus, but he is alive and exalted at God's right hand!
So Stephen was taken out of the city and stoned to death. We are told, "The witnesses left their cloaks in the care of a young man named Saul" (v.58). (This is where Saul, better known to us a Paul, enters the story.) The old rule said that the witnesses were to throw the first stones (Deut.17.7). So the bribed liars and the crowd who had heard and rejected the word of Stephen took him out to eliminate him. These "witnesses" stoned to death Stephen, the witness of Jesus.
And so the Greek word for "witness" has become our English word "martyr" — a person who bears witness to Jesus even to the point of death. Stephen was the first Christian martyr. His last two prayers remind us of his Lord — "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" and "Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!"
How important is the Lord Jesus Christ to you? We all individually have to make our response to him. In that sense we need a personal faith. But sometimes that personal faith is so private and hidden that we cannot be witnesses. He is calling us all to be witnesses — witnesses to who he is and to what he has done, and witnesses to what he means to us and what he has done for us.
The time may come when once again Christian witnesses may become martyrs. We can't really think forward to such a time right now. What is important is that we be genuine, that we be people of integrity, that we get to know our Lord better, that we experience his grace and his Spirit in cleansing, renewing and empowering us.
What has the Lord Jesus Christ done for you? What does he mean to you? How important is he to you? He is calling us to be his witnesses.
© Peter J. Blackburn,
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations are from the Good News Bible, © American Bible Society, 1984.
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