Sermon Illustrations for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (2021)
Illustration
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Jesus is risen! Jesus has ascended into heaven! Great things are about to happen. But during the waiting period before the Holy Spirit empowers the followers of Jesus, Peter directs them all through what he feels is an important task – replacing Judas. We sense some of the trauma and confusion in the fact that Luke and Matthew’s account don’t agree regarding how Judas died. But they feel the need to be complete, whatever that means. This is unfinished business. So, two candidates are selected with the requirement being that they are “one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from…” (1:21-22). Two candidates were Joseph Barsabbas (son of the Sabbath), aka Justin, and Matthias, named after the war hero whose son, Judas Maccabeus, cast out the oppressors who desecrated the temple in the second century BC. After prayer they cast lots, kind of like rolling the dice, and that’s it.
It’s Matthias. Congratulations. Here’s your apostle card. And Justin, thanks for playing.
And that’s it. We don’t hear anything more about Matthias the apostle.
Maybe, just maybe, this Justus is the same Barsabbas who was sent out with Silas to carry the letter written after the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.
As for Matthias, later tradition said he was beheaded in Georgia, after which his body was shipped to Rome to be buried.
Think about it. When James was murdered by Herod Agrippa, nobody selected a replacement. The same with the other apostles who were martyred. Maybe it stopped mattering.
I guess the important thing is that we all fill our place, whatever it happens to be.
Frank R.
* * *
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
A humble servant who works in the shadows; that might be an apt description for Matthias. He was part of the 120 followers that met in the upper room. He’d been following Jesus from the beginning. Once the lot falls to him at the end of Acts 1, he’s not mentioned again in scripture. There are traditions and assumptions made about him and what happened to him. From what little evidence we have, he was a guy that worked for the Lord in a “behind the scenes” kind of way.
I thought of Matthias when I found this story in the December 1981 edition of “Reader’s Digest.” John Kenneth Galbraith, in his autobiography, A Life in Our Times, illustrates the devotion of Emily Gloria Wilson, his family’s housekeeper: “It had been a wearying day, and I asked Emily to hold all telephone calls while I had a nap. Shortly thereafter the phone rang. Lyndon Johnson was calling from the White House. ‘Get me Ken Galbraith. This is Lyndon Johnson.’ ‘He is sleeping, Mr. President. He said not to disturb him.’ ‘Well, wake him up. I want to talk to him.’ ‘No, Mr. President. I work for him, not you.’ When I called the president back, he could scarcely control his pleasure. ‘Tell that woman I want her here in the White House.”
Jesus needs workers like that, too. Will you be one?
Bill T.
* * *
1 John 5:9-13
“Whoever has the son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” John’s letter reminds us that we, as Christians, adhere to the presence of the Son of God as our path to life, our path of faith. God was revealed to us through the birth, life, ministry, arrest, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. This is how we experience and encounter God-With-Us. It is not how all people of faith encounter God – but for us, this relationship with Jesus is essential to our life. This is how we need to move and live and have our being…. this life in Jesus is how we rest in the arms of God. May it be so for you.
Bonnie B.
* * *
1 John 5:9-13
Commenting on this text, Martin Luther offered some thoughtful reflections, claiming “Therefore John wants us to know and no longer to doubt or tremble but to have certain knowledge that we live and grow in faith.” (Luther’s Works, Vol.30, p.321) Luther also had words for those who reject this lesson’s focus on Christ, that he is the only way to life:
He who does not know the Lord Christ from the gospel may speak or know about God whatever he pleases (as the heathen, Turks, and Jews profess to know much about him), his knowledge is nevertheless worth nothing. He does not know God aright... For without the comfort derived from a true knowledge of God, a heart cannot be at rest... (What Luther Says, p.202)
John Calvin largely agreed with this observation:
... let us disregard those speculations which profit nothing, and hold only to the plain way of salvation, which he [Christ] has made known to us. (Calvin’s Commentaries, XXII/2, p.265)
Mark E.
* * *
John 17:6-19
John Piper, in his book Spreading Power through Persecution, shares a powerful story about the impact of faithfulness in the face of persecution. He writes, “On January 9, 1985, a pastor in Bulgaria named Christo Kuleczef, was arrested and put in jail. His crime was preaching in his church. He immediately began to share Christ while he was in prison. He had a trial. It was a mockery of justice, and he was sentenced to eight months. He did his eight months, got out, and wrote these words: ‘Both prisoners and jailers asked many questions, and we had a more fruitful ministry there than we could have expected in church. God was better served by our presence in prison than if we had been free.’”
In Jesus’ prayer for his disciples, he noted that they would be hated by the world, just as he was hated. He also notes, though, that he has sent them into the world. They are there to make a difference. No matter what situation the world puts us in, we can make a difference for Jesus Christ.
Bill T.
* * *
John 17:6-19
As his earthly ministry comes to an end Jesus prays for the safety of his disciples. “I guarded them,” Jesus prays, “and not one of them was lost except…”
Except whom?
The NRSV writes “the one destined to be lost” but the Greek is literally “the son of destruction.” Is that Judas? Maybe one can assume so. But if Judas is destined to be lost there’s no free will involved, is there?
However, if this is truly cosmic some speculate we’re not talking about Judas at all, but the rebellion of some angels which happened in some earlier age. Right? This is only hinted at in scripture, but the first Christians were big fans of the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. There are only a couple scriptural references. I took this list from Willard Swartley’s Believers Church Bible Commentary on John (p. 400).
And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6)
…God did not spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment… (2 Peter 2:4).
And all this may be alluding to the union of the sons of God with the daughters of humanity in Genesis 6:1-4, along with a much longer explication in the aforementioned Book of Enoch (chs. 6-14), which was very popular among Christian for centuries, and mostly ignored today.
I’ve read the Book of Enoch (which is not scriptural) and thought a lot about all this and can’t say I understand fully what’s going on. But I’m glad in the face of mystery and power Jesus is on our side and praying for us.
Frank R.
Jesus is risen! Jesus has ascended into heaven! Great things are about to happen. But during the waiting period before the Holy Spirit empowers the followers of Jesus, Peter directs them all through what he feels is an important task – replacing Judas. We sense some of the trauma and confusion in the fact that Luke and Matthew’s account don’t agree regarding how Judas died. But they feel the need to be complete, whatever that means. This is unfinished business. So, two candidates are selected with the requirement being that they are “one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from…” (1:21-22). Two candidates were Joseph Barsabbas (son of the Sabbath), aka Justin, and Matthias, named after the war hero whose son, Judas Maccabeus, cast out the oppressors who desecrated the temple in the second century BC. After prayer they cast lots, kind of like rolling the dice, and that’s it.
It’s Matthias. Congratulations. Here’s your apostle card. And Justin, thanks for playing.
And that’s it. We don’t hear anything more about Matthias the apostle.
Maybe, just maybe, this Justus is the same Barsabbas who was sent out with Silas to carry the letter written after the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.
As for Matthias, later tradition said he was beheaded in Georgia, after which his body was shipped to Rome to be buried.
Think about it. When James was murdered by Herod Agrippa, nobody selected a replacement. The same with the other apostles who were martyred. Maybe it stopped mattering.
I guess the important thing is that we all fill our place, whatever it happens to be.
Frank R.
* * *
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
A humble servant who works in the shadows; that might be an apt description for Matthias. He was part of the 120 followers that met in the upper room. He’d been following Jesus from the beginning. Once the lot falls to him at the end of Acts 1, he’s not mentioned again in scripture. There are traditions and assumptions made about him and what happened to him. From what little evidence we have, he was a guy that worked for the Lord in a “behind the scenes” kind of way.
I thought of Matthias when I found this story in the December 1981 edition of “Reader’s Digest.” John Kenneth Galbraith, in his autobiography, A Life in Our Times, illustrates the devotion of Emily Gloria Wilson, his family’s housekeeper: “It had been a wearying day, and I asked Emily to hold all telephone calls while I had a nap. Shortly thereafter the phone rang. Lyndon Johnson was calling from the White House. ‘Get me Ken Galbraith. This is Lyndon Johnson.’ ‘He is sleeping, Mr. President. He said not to disturb him.’ ‘Well, wake him up. I want to talk to him.’ ‘No, Mr. President. I work for him, not you.’ When I called the president back, he could scarcely control his pleasure. ‘Tell that woman I want her here in the White House.”
Jesus needs workers like that, too. Will you be one?
Bill T.
* * *
1 John 5:9-13
“Whoever has the son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” John’s letter reminds us that we, as Christians, adhere to the presence of the Son of God as our path to life, our path of faith. God was revealed to us through the birth, life, ministry, arrest, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. This is how we experience and encounter God-With-Us. It is not how all people of faith encounter God – but for us, this relationship with Jesus is essential to our life. This is how we need to move and live and have our being…. this life in Jesus is how we rest in the arms of God. May it be so for you.
Bonnie B.
* * *
1 John 5:9-13
Commenting on this text, Martin Luther offered some thoughtful reflections, claiming “Therefore John wants us to know and no longer to doubt or tremble but to have certain knowledge that we live and grow in faith.” (Luther’s Works, Vol.30, p.321) Luther also had words for those who reject this lesson’s focus on Christ, that he is the only way to life:
He who does not know the Lord Christ from the gospel may speak or know about God whatever he pleases (as the heathen, Turks, and Jews profess to know much about him), his knowledge is nevertheless worth nothing. He does not know God aright... For without the comfort derived from a true knowledge of God, a heart cannot be at rest... (What Luther Says, p.202)
John Calvin largely agreed with this observation:
... let us disregard those speculations which profit nothing, and hold only to the plain way of salvation, which he [Christ] has made known to us. (Calvin’s Commentaries, XXII/2, p.265)
Mark E.
* * *
John 17:6-19
John Piper, in his book Spreading Power through Persecution, shares a powerful story about the impact of faithfulness in the face of persecution. He writes, “On January 9, 1985, a pastor in Bulgaria named Christo Kuleczef, was arrested and put in jail. His crime was preaching in his church. He immediately began to share Christ while he was in prison. He had a trial. It was a mockery of justice, and he was sentenced to eight months. He did his eight months, got out, and wrote these words: ‘Both prisoners and jailers asked many questions, and we had a more fruitful ministry there than we could have expected in church. God was better served by our presence in prison than if we had been free.’”
In Jesus’ prayer for his disciples, he noted that they would be hated by the world, just as he was hated. He also notes, though, that he has sent them into the world. They are there to make a difference. No matter what situation the world puts us in, we can make a difference for Jesus Christ.
Bill T.
* * *
John 17:6-19
As his earthly ministry comes to an end Jesus prays for the safety of his disciples. “I guarded them,” Jesus prays, “and not one of them was lost except…”
Except whom?
The NRSV writes “the one destined to be lost” but the Greek is literally “the son of destruction.” Is that Judas? Maybe one can assume so. But if Judas is destined to be lost there’s no free will involved, is there?
However, if this is truly cosmic some speculate we’re not talking about Judas at all, but the rebellion of some angels which happened in some earlier age. Right? This is only hinted at in scripture, but the first Christians were big fans of the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. There are only a couple scriptural references. I took this list from Willard Swartley’s Believers Church Bible Commentary on John (p. 400).
And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6)
…God did not spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment… (2 Peter 2:4).
And all this may be alluding to the union of the sons of God with the daughters of humanity in Genesis 6:1-4, along with a much longer explication in the aforementioned Book of Enoch (chs. 6-14), which was very popular among Christian for centuries, and mostly ignored today.
I’ve read the Book of Enoch (which is not scriptural) and thought a lot about all this and can’t say I understand fully what’s going on. But I’m glad in the face of mystery and power Jesus is on our side and praying for us.
Frank R.
