Testimony
Commentary
Object:
In 1637, Eilenburg, Saxony, was surrounded by the dark night of the soul. Europe was at war. Eilenburg was tossed back and forth by the armies. Three times during that year it was attacked and severely damaged. When the armies left, refugees poured in by the thousands. Diseases ran rampant. Food was scarce.
There was only one pastor in the city, a fellow named Martin Rinkart. His journal for 1637 indicates that he conducted over 4,500 funerals that year, sometimes as many as 40 or 50 a day. Life was a constant death, and each morning stank of disaster.
Still, somehow, even today, 1637 is important for nearly every Thanksgiving celebration around the world. For Christians still sing the song Pastor Rinkart wrote that year. They sing it with gusto. They sing it with faith. They sing it, not because it catalogues a list of reasons for thanksgiving, but because thankfulness is all that is left when the bottom drops out of the world:
Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
Each of today’s lectionary readings resonates with that testimony. First comes the report of Pharisaic rabbi Saul’s conversion from a rabid persecutor of Christians to an avid evangelist for Christ. Then we jump into heaven, and join the waves of worship that waft out from the throne of almighty God as earth and eternity are knit together in an undying song of thankful praise. Finally we take a stroll along the beach of Galilee, overhearing the conversations between Jesus and his disciples as the torch is passed in the great and unfolding drama of salvation.
Acts 9:1-6 (7-20)
Reaction to the rapidly developing Christian fellowship after Pentecost was swift and sharp. Within Jerusalem’s dominant religious community there was consternation about the apostles’ identification of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah (Acts 4), creating tensions and divisions. Inside the newly organizing church itself, there were ethical issues that needed to be addressed (Acts 5-6). Soon the followers of Jesus needed to expand their leadership team (the deacons of Acts 6), and found themselves the targets of increasingly organized persecutions (Acts 8:1-3). Although this disrupted the close fellowship of the Jerusalem congregation, those who moved elsewhere to find safety brought the message of Jesus’ teachings, death, and resurrection with them (Acts 8:4).
An amazing turn happened, however, when the leading persecutor, a zealous Pharisee named Saul, suddenly went through a miraculous conversion (Acts 9) and began to preach that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. When Peter’s exploits with the Roman centurion Cornelius at Caesarea nurtured the new Gentile mission of the church (Acts 10-11), Diaspora-born Paul (Saul by his other name) became the perfect candidate to partner with Barnabas in establishing an international congregation in the eastern Roman capital city of Antioch (Acts 12). Soon this congregation served as the launching pad for the great mission journeys of Paul and his companions (Acts 13-19) that would forever relocate the expansion of the Christian church outside of Jerusalem and Palestine.
What had been a centripetal energizing motion during the first phase of God’s recovery mission on planet Earth (that is, drawing all nations toward a re-engagement with their creator through the strategically placed people of Israel), was now shifted into a centrifugal motion of divine sending out these blessings of testimony to the world, in ever-widening circles of witness. The Christian church, born as a Jewish messianic sect, became a global religion.
Revelation 5:11-14
In John’s second major vision of Jesus, the scene shifts from earth to heaven (Revelation 4-5). God is not represented by creatures or beings or shapes or symbols, but only as the shimmering of pure light itself, in pulsating and changing hues covering the whole spectrum. The throne from which God rules is not backed against the wall of some palace room, but is at the center of all things, so that all of created reality flows out from it, and surrounds it with worship, and receives its light and life from God. Everything everywhere participates in synchronized waves that emanate out from this point of origin, and the pulsating undulations send back to the throne of God choruses of praise and songs of reverence.
Occupying the key places of honor closest to the divine throne are the 24 elders, representing the combined leadership of the people of God through biblical history -- 12 patriarchs in the Old Testament, 12 apostles in the New. As the rhythms of worship resound, and catch everything in heaven and on earth and in the seas in their vibrations and beats, a new element is suddenly introduced: a scroll is extended out from the indescribable light of the One on the throne. This parchment is covered with writing, and appears to be of critical importance for whatever has to happen next. Yet no one seems to have access to it, so John weeps.
Quickly, however, John is told that the “Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” is approaching, and that he will unfasten the seals that bind the scroll. Expecting a roaring and powerful beast, John is amazed to see instead a “Lamb, looking as if it had been slain.” It was “standing in the center of the throne.” Subsequent lines make it clear that this one is Jesus. In these quick descriptors John tells us several things. First of all, Jesus is human, a king in the line of David. Meanwhile, he is also the “root” of that whole royal family, giving the rest of its members their royal authority. At the same time, he is the one who died as the true Passover lamb, fulfilling the meaning of that ritual right which gave identity to the nation of Israel. But he also came alive again in the resurrection of Easter Sunday, and rules over all things with supreme and unequaled authority. He is, in fact, truly God (notice that he stands at the center of the throne, which is a position that can solely be claimed by the creator deity of the universe).
Jesus slowly, but deliberately, opens the seven seals in succession. As they are cracked, scenes of partial devastation wreaked upon earth and human societies provide anticipation of the coming comprehensive judgment of God. Before the full impact of these things annihilates humanity, however, a group symbolically numbering 144,000, but visually identified as “a multitude that no one could count,” is ceremonially protected from the combined destructive power of evil and the awful judgment of God (Revelation 7). It is important to pay close attention to the manner in which John records his vision here, because the symbolic 144,000 and the innumerable host are identified as one and the same group. Since John brings this number back again in Revelation 14:1, it is critical to understand 144,000 as a descriptive collective, rather than an itemized tally.
John 21:1-19
The epilogue to John’s gospel (today’s reading), possibly added later (note the apparent ending at the close of John 20), does several things. First, it reveals the uncertainty that plagues the disciples and the church, wanting to be witnesses of Jesus but caught up in the cares and demands of the times. Second, it reaffirms the missionary character of the apostolic church, particularly when 153 fish are caught in the disciples’ net only at the instigation of Jesus (this was the number of the nations of the world as described by at least some Greek teachers of the day). Third, it provides a way for Peter to be fully restored to leadership graces, since he will become the key communicator and witness among the disciples. Fourth, it announces both Peter’s early death (by crucifixion under Nero’s persecution around 65 AD) and John’s longevity, each of which contributed in different ways to the formation of the Christian church in the first century.
Jerome wrote that when John was a very old and feeble man living in Ephesus, he was brought each Sunday to the front of the congregation’s gathering on a pallet carried by others. Invariably John would be asked to speak a word, and just as constantly he would raise himself on one elbow and with great effort whisper out with a hoarse rasp, “Little children, love one another.” When asked why he always said the same thing, he would reply that this message was enough; that it was all that was necessary.
It was during those final years of John’s life, according to Jerome, that others urged him to write another gospel, in addition to the Synoptics which were by then widely circulated and read. Since John was the last of Jesus’ original disciples still living, it would be a final direct link with the One who had changed the world. So it is that we have this amazingly crafted testimony of the light and life of the world.
Application
C. S. Lewis included a little chapter called “A Word about Praising” in his Reflections on the Psalms. He had some trouble with Christianity when he first encountered it, he said, because it seemed that God was so self-centered and Christians were so self-important. God wants praise, he thought. In fact, God demands praise. And if that’s what God is all about, why should anybody want to worship him? Isn’t it a little like falling at the feet of Muhammad Ali?
And Christians too: all this business of asking God to bless them! Rather self-important, isn’t it? “Do I really want to mix with this crowd?” he wondered.
But then, says Lewis, he remembered what it was like to be in love. Love demands praise, not because it makes love grow, but because love itself must be spoken in that language. To love is to praise. To care for someone is to seek that person’s blessing. Praise is the language of love.
But the praise and blessings of love are never merely self-serving. They are, in fact, self-giving. They reach beyond themselves and seek to touch the lives of others with their fun and fellowship. They seek to broaden and expand the extent of their joy like the rippling waves on a pond, as John shows us in Revelation 4-5. The relationship that results in cries of praise and pleas for blessing spreads beyond itself. It calls to others: “See what we have. Feel what we experience. Share the delights we know!”
Love can never be self-important. This is what Saul found out when he finally truly encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. This is what created the eternal chorus echoing through time from John’s Revelation visions. And this is certainly what the disciples of Jesus felt as they communed for a while with their Master on the shores of Galilee.
Alternative Application
Revelation 5:11-14.When Ayatollah Khomeini returned to power in Iran some decades ago, one of his first decrees was to ban music from the airwaves. No music on the radio, none on television. “Music,” he said, “makes the brain inactive.”
It’s no wonder that the ayatollah was no friend to Christianity. Music grows naturally in the heart of the child of God. “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,” says the apostle Paul. “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). And the Old Testament heritage of faith is filled with the majestic splendor of choral celebration.
“Without music life would be a mistake,” said Friedrich Nietzsche. And for some, that may summarize all too well their tragic existence. Take the thought of another philosopher, the American George Santayana. “Music is essentially useless,” he said, “as life is!”
Maybe that’s what Robert Ingersoll had in mind as he lay dying. He had spent his life caustically denying God and defying God’s power. After he died, the funeral invitations went out according to his instructions. They carried this pathetic line: “There will be no singing.” Can you imagine that?
Tom Prideaux, then entertainment editor of Life magazine, once wrote about hearing Irving Berlin perform. A vast host of vocalists had sung Berlin’s music over the years, but here was the great one bringing his own tunes to life as no other could. “It wasn’t a man singing a song,” said Prideaux. “It was a man singing his autobiography!”
And that’s true of the Christian too. A friend once asked Franz Josef Haydn why his church music was always so full of gladness. “I cannot make it otherwise,” he replied. “I write according to the thoughts I feel. When I think upon my God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap from my pen!”
In one congregation where I served for a time, a young woman used to come with her friends. She was a nursing student, full of zest, the life of every party. But she was bored at our worship services. She would settle in at the edge of the bench and yawn through the whole message. When everybody stood to sing, she’d stand and look around, just waiting for it all to be finished.
But I’ll never forget one Sunday morning. It was Easter. When we started singing, she beamed! Her face shone as she made music as energetically as anyone else. I made sure I found her after worship. “What happened, Chris?” I said. “You’re different today!”
Then she told me about her family. Her parents had been divorced years before. Things were bad between her mom and dad. They hurt each other a lot. And they never forgave each other.
Then her dad got cancer. He had died the week before. Chris and her mom had flown out to see him just before the end. He told them he was a Christian. He told them he was sorry for all the grief he had put them through. He told them about how Jesus had forgiven him. He told them about the cross of Good Friday. And when they started to cry together, he told them about Easter Sunday.
And suddenly it all made sense to Chris. That’s why she was singing today! Jesus touched her father’s life, and now Chris knew his love too.
Ira Sankey was another singer who knew the touch of Christ. He loved the music of the Bible, including the rousing choruses around the throne of God in Revelation 5. And John, who saw these things in heaven, would probably have liked Sankey’s testimony too, the one he wrote as a song:
My life flows on in endless song; above earth’s lamentation
I hear the sweet, not far-off hymn that hails the new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul -- how can I keep from singing?
There was only one pastor in the city, a fellow named Martin Rinkart. His journal for 1637 indicates that he conducted over 4,500 funerals that year, sometimes as many as 40 or 50 a day. Life was a constant death, and each morning stank of disaster.
Still, somehow, even today, 1637 is important for nearly every Thanksgiving celebration around the world. For Christians still sing the song Pastor Rinkart wrote that year. They sing it with gusto. They sing it with faith. They sing it, not because it catalogues a list of reasons for thanksgiving, but because thankfulness is all that is left when the bottom drops out of the world:
Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
Each of today’s lectionary readings resonates with that testimony. First comes the report of Pharisaic rabbi Saul’s conversion from a rabid persecutor of Christians to an avid evangelist for Christ. Then we jump into heaven, and join the waves of worship that waft out from the throne of almighty God as earth and eternity are knit together in an undying song of thankful praise. Finally we take a stroll along the beach of Galilee, overhearing the conversations between Jesus and his disciples as the torch is passed in the great and unfolding drama of salvation.
Acts 9:1-6 (7-20)
Reaction to the rapidly developing Christian fellowship after Pentecost was swift and sharp. Within Jerusalem’s dominant religious community there was consternation about the apostles’ identification of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah (Acts 4), creating tensions and divisions. Inside the newly organizing church itself, there were ethical issues that needed to be addressed (Acts 5-6). Soon the followers of Jesus needed to expand their leadership team (the deacons of Acts 6), and found themselves the targets of increasingly organized persecutions (Acts 8:1-3). Although this disrupted the close fellowship of the Jerusalem congregation, those who moved elsewhere to find safety brought the message of Jesus’ teachings, death, and resurrection with them (Acts 8:4).
An amazing turn happened, however, when the leading persecutor, a zealous Pharisee named Saul, suddenly went through a miraculous conversion (Acts 9) and began to preach that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. When Peter’s exploits with the Roman centurion Cornelius at Caesarea nurtured the new Gentile mission of the church (Acts 10-11), Diaspora-born Paul (Saul by his other name) became the perfect candidate to partner with Barnabas in establishing an international congregation in the eastern Roman capital city of Antioch (Acts 12). Soon this congregation served as the launching pad for the great mission journeys of Paul and his companions (Acts 13-19) that would forever relocate the expansion of the Christian church outside of Jerusalem and Palestine.
What had been a centripetal energizing motion during the first phase of God’s recovery mission on planet Earth (that is, drawing all nations toward a re-engagement with their creator through the strategically placed people of Israel), was now shifted into a centrifugal motion of divine sending out these blessings of testimony to the world, in ever-widening circles of witness. The Christian church, born as a Jewish messianic sect, became a global religion.
Revelation 5:11-14
In John’s second major vision of Jesus, the scene shifts from earth to heaven (Revelation 4-5). God is not represented by creatures or beings or shapes or symbols, but only as the shimmering of pure light itself, in pulsating and changing hues covering the whole spectrum. The throne from which God rules is not backed against the wall of some palace room, but is at the center of all things, so that all of created reality flows out from it, and surrounds it with worship, and receives its light and life from God. Everything everywhere participates in synchronized waves that emanate out from this point of origin, and the pulsating undulations send back to the throne of God choruses of praise and songs of reverence.
Occupying the key places of honor closest to the divine throne are the 24 elders, representing the combined leadership of the people of God through biblical history -- 12 patriarchs in the Old Testament, 12 apostles in the New. As the rhythms of worship resound, and catch everything in heaven and on earth and in the seas in their vibrations and beats, a new element is suddenly introduced: a scroll is extended out from the indescribable light of the One on the throne. This parchment is covered with writing, and appears to be of critical importance for whatever has to happen next. Yet no one seems to have access to it, so John weeps.
Quickly, however, John is told that the “Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” is approaching, and that he will unfasten the seals that bind the scroll. Expecting a roaring and powerful beast, John is amazed to see instead a “Lamb, looking as if it had been slain.” It was “standing in the center of the throne.” Subsequent lines make it clear that this one is Jesus. In these quick descriptors John tells us several things. First of all, Jesus is human, a king in the line of David. Meanwhile, he is also the “root” of that whole royal family, giving the rest of its members their royal authority. At the same time, he is the one who died as the true Passover lamb, fulfilling the meaning of that ritual right which gave identity to the nation of Israel. But he also came alive again in the resurrection of Easter Sunday, and rules over all things with supreme and unequaled authority. He is, in fact, truly God (notice that he stands at the center of the throne, which is a position that can solely be claimed by the creator deity of the universe).
Jesus slowly, but deliberately, opens the seven seals in succession. As they are cracked, scenes of partial devastation wreaked upon earth and human societies provide anticipation of the coming comprehensive judgment of God. Before the full impact of these things annihilates humanity, however, a group symbolically numbering 144,000, but visually identified as “a multitude that no one could count,” is ceremonially protected from the combined destructive power of evil and the awful judgment of God (Revelation 7). It is important to pay close attention to the manner in which John records his vision here, because the symbolic 144,000 and the innumerable host are identified as one and the same group. Since John brings this number back again in Revelation 14:1, it is critical to understand 144,000 as a descriptive collective, rather than an itemized tally.
John 21:1-19
The epilogue to John’s gospel (today’s reading), possibly added later (note the apparent ending at the close of John 20), does several things. First, it reveals the uncertainty that plagues the disciples and the church, wanting to be witnesses of Jesus but caught up in the cares and demands of the times. Second, it reaffirms the missionary character of the apostolic church, particularly when 153 fish are caught in the disciples’ net only at the instigation of Jesus (this was the number of the nations of the world as described by at least some Greek teachers of the day). Third, it provides a way for Peter to be fully restored to leadership graces, since he will become the key communicator and witness among the disciples. Fourth, it announces both Peter’s early death (by crucifixion under Nero’s persecution around 65 AD) and John’s longevity, each of which contributed in different ways to the formation of the Christian church in the first century.
Jerome wrote that when John was a very old and feeble man living in Ephesus, he was brought each Sunday to the front of the congregation’s gathering on a pallet carried by others. Invariably John would be asked to speak a word, and just as constantly he would raise himself on one elbow and with great effort whisper out with a hoarse rasp, “Little children, love one another.” When asked why he always said the same thing, he would reply that this message was enough; that it was all that was necessary.
It was during those final years of John’s life, according to Jerome, that others urged him to write another gospel, in addition to the Synoptics which were by then widely circulated and read. Since John was the last of Jesus’ original disciples still living, it would be a final direct link with the One who had changed the world. So it is that we have this amazingly crafted testimony of the light and life of the world.
Application
C. S. Lewis included a little chapter called “A Word about Praising” in his Reflections on the Psalms. He had some trouble with Christianity when he first encountered it, he said, because it seemed that God was so self-centered and Christians were so self-important. God wants praise, he thought. In fact, God demands praise. And if that’s what God is all about, why should anybody want to worship him? Isn’t it a little like falling at the feet of Muhammad Ali?
And Christians too: all this business of asking God to bless them! Rather self-important, isn’t it? “Do I really want to mix with this crowd?” he wondered.
But then, says Lewis, he remembered what it was like to be in love. Love demands praise, not because it makes love grow, but because love itself must be spoken in that language. To love is to praise. To care for someone is to seek that person’s blessing. Praise is the language of love.
But the praise and blessings of love are never merely self-serving. They are, in fact, self-giving. They reach beyond themselves and seek to touch the lives of others with their fun and fellowship. They seek to broaden and expand the extent of their joy like the rippling waves on a pond, as John shows us in Revelation 4-5. The relationship that results in cries of praise and pleas for blessing spreads beyond itself. It calls to others: “See what we have. Feel what we experience. Share the delights we know!”
Love can never be self-important. This is what Saul found out when he finally truly encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. This is what created the eternal chorus echoing through time from John’s Revelation visions. And this is certainly what the disciples of Jesus felt as they communed for a while with their Master on the shores of Galilee.
Alternative Application
Revelation 5:11-14.When Ayatollah Khomeini returned to power in Iran some decades ago, one of his first decrees was to ban music from the airwaves. No music on the radio, none on television. “Music,” he said, “makes the brain inactive.”
It’s no wonder that the ayatollah was no friend to Christianity. Music grows naturally in the heart of the child of God. “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,” says the apostle Paul. “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). And the Old Testament heritage of faith is filled with the majestic splendor of choral celebration.
“Without music life would be a mistake,” said Friedrich Nietzsche. And for some, that may summarize all too well their tragic existence. Take the thought of another philosopher, the American George Santayana. “Music is essentially useless,” he said, “as life is!”
Maybe that’s what Robert Ingersoll had in mind as he lay dying. He had spent his life caustically denying God and defying God’s power. After he died, the funeral invitations went out according to his instructions. They carried this pathetic line: “There will be no singing.” Can you imagine that?
Tom Prideaux, then entertainment editor of Life magazine, once wrote about hearing Irving Berlin perform. A vast host of vocalists had sung Berlin’s music over the years, but here was the great one bringing his own tunes to life as no other could. “It wasn’t a man singing a song,” said Prideaux. “It was a man singing his autobiography!”
And that’s true of the Christian too. A friend once asked Franz Josef Haydn why his church music was always so full of gladness. “I cannot make it otherwise,” he replied. “I write according to the thoughts I feel. When I think upon my God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap from my pen!”
In one congregation where I served for a time, a young woman used to come with her friends. She was a nursing student, full of zest, the life of every party. But she was bored at our worship services. She would settle in at the edge of the bench and yawn through the whole message. When everybody stood to sing, she’d stand and look around, just waiting for it all to be finished.
But I’ll never forget one Sunday morning. It was Easter. When we started singing, she beamed! Her face shone as she made music as energetically as anyone else. I made sure I found her after worship. “What happened, Chris?” I said. “You’re different today!”
Then she told me about her family. Her parents had been divorced years before. Things were bad between her mom and dad. They hurt each other a lot. And they never forgave each other.
Then her dad got cancer. He had died the week before. Chris and her mom had flown out to see him just before the end. He told them he was a Christian. He told them he was sorry for all the grief he had put them through. He told them about how Jesus had forgiven him. He told them about the cross of Good Friday. And when they started to cry together, he told them about Easter Sunday.
And suddenly it all made sense to Chris. That’s why she was singing today! Jesus touched her father’s life, and now Chris knew his love too.
Ira Sankey was another singer who knew the touch of Christ. He loved the music of the Bible, including the rousing choruses around the throne of God in Revelation 5. And John, who saw these things in heaven, would probably have liked Sankey’s testimony too, the one he wrote as a song:
My life flows on in endless song; above earth’s lamentation
I hear the sweet, not far-off hymn that hails the new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul -- how can I keep from singing?
