Acts 4:32-35
What do you do with Easter when it’s over? Of course, Easter isn’t technically over: Easter is a season
that begins with the Resurrection of the Lord and winds up 50 days later with
Pentecost, but still, for most folks, Easter was only last Sunday. It’s over,
so what do you do with Easter when it’s over? I mean, it’s not like
Thanksgiving, right? When Thanksgiving is over, you put it in a Tupperware
container and stick it on a shelf in the refrigerator. When Thanksgiving is over,
you can wrap it in aluminum foil or make a week’s worth of turkey sandwiches
out of it, maybe have chicken and dressing with green bean casserole a few
nights for dinner. You sweep up the crumbs, put away the dishes, and start
planning for the next football game. That’s what you do when Thanksgiving is
over, but what do you do with Easter when it’s over?
It’d be nice if it was more like Christmas. When Christmas is over you
take it down and box it up. Sure, there’s some variation on exactly when Christmas
is over. For some, it may be as soon as the last kid unwraps the last present
and they all fall asleep on the floor about 9:00 A.M. Christmas morning. I know
my mom always talked about waiting until after the New Year (of course, just
how long after the New Year depended on how willing we were to help take the
decorations down and rearrange the furniture). Still, there are those
liturgical purists who claim Christmas hangs around for its full twelve days
and they don’t put it away until Epiphany (January 6). Either way, when
Christmas is over, you haul it out by the road or put it back in its box. You
take it off the door, out of the windows, down from the mantle, and you put it
back in the basement, back in the attic, out in the garage. When Christmas is
over, you put Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, Magi, and the little, baby Jesus
back in their Styrofoam molds. But what do you do with Easter when it’s over?
Maybe you hang it back in the closet, next to the suit you wear for
funerals. Maybe you shove it all in the cookie jar on the counter, hoping your
kids will forget about it and all those chalky, chocolate footballs that came
with it. Maybe you tuck it back in the file folder of your memory, right along
with the smell of vinegar and food coloring, the taste of boiled eggs, and the grainy
feeling of yellow-colored sugar on marshmallows. Maybe you put it back in its
place, so you’ll know right where it is come next year, and you can pull it
out, dust it off, and remind yourself and everyone who sees you that you still
have it…what do you do with Easter when it’s over?
Every year, I tend to think about what it must have been like for those
first followers of Jesus, those first folks who had to answer such a question.
I mean, what do you do with Easter when it’s over—right after it happened?! Did
they sleep at all that first Easter Sunday night? What about Monday? Could they
have even contemplated going back to work? How would that conversation go? “Uh,
boss, I’m sorry, but I can’t come in today. In fact, I may never come back.
Something happened yesterday that has turned my whole life right-side-up.” Did
they run down to all the synagogues, knock on the rabbis’ office doors, just to
tell them they had all missed it? Did they march up to the palace of Pontius Pilate,
swords in hand, and demand the liberation of their people because their messiah
was indeed alive, back from the dead? Did they reignite a spark of
self-righteous piety, standing on street corners, calling down everyone who
passed by for not believing, for not acknowledging the anointed nature of
Jesus’ life and ministry? Did they publish their experiences, hoping someone
would come calling, wanting to buy the movie rights? After all, it isn’t every
day that you run into someone who knows somebody who came back from the dead!
What did they do with Easter once it was over?
Mark leaves us in the dark, sort of, only telling us that the women fled
the tomb out of fear, but anyone who reads those words would know better. After
all, how would the story get out if they “said nothing to anyone?” Matthew
tells us that the disciples returned to Galilee, worshipped Jesus, and Jesus
gave them what we call “the Great Commission.” John gives us a touch more with
stories about Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, the other disciples, and an
interesting scene in chapter 21 on the beach of the Sea of Tiberias, where
Jesus cooks breakfast for his disciples and has a rather interesting
conversation with Peter. But it’s Luke’s account that we are interested in this
morning.
In Luke, the resurrected Jesus appears to the women at the tomb, two
disciples on the road to Emmaus, and to the rest of his disciples before
ascending into heaven. Luke doesn’t end his story there, however—he wrote a
sequel. We call it The Acts of the Apostles
(or just Acts). Now, in Acts, if
you want to ask the question, “What do you do with Easter when it’s over?”
you’re going to get some pretty amazing answers. For starters, there’s the
whole incident at Pentecost: the disciples (with a newly minted member to
replace Judas) are gathered together in one place when a loud, violent, wind
comes rushing in, bringing with it “Divided tongues, as of fire.”[1]
This arrival of the Holy Spirit enables all of those gathered together for the
festival of Pentecost to hear the disciples’ words in their own, native
languages. In fact, Peter is so empowered that he delivers a sermon right there
on the spot that winds up with some 3,000-people baptized and added to the
number of the followers.
The first movement of Acts mostly focuses on Peter’s empowered actions.
Accompanied often by John, Peter heals a crippled beggar in chapter three,
stands boldly before the council in chapter four, defending his actions in
healing the beggar and proclaiming the gospel, and by chapter five, we hear all
about the healings performed by the apostles. In fact, if one were to read the
book of Acts, one might get the impression that the answer to the question,
“What do you do with Easter once it’s over?” would be “preach, heal, and
perform miracles.” There is, however, a subtler answer that lies in Luke’s
words in Acts, an answer that may not pack the punch of a miracle story we’ve
told and retold during vacation Bible school, but an answer that holds the
power—great power! —to dramatically change the world.
There are hints of this power laced throughout the opening chapters of
Luke’s second volume. One such hint comes at the end of chapter two: “Awe
came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the
apostles…” What “wonders and signs”? Luke hasn’t told us about any of
them yet, has he? Maybe the wonders and signs are what follows: “All
who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their
possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day
by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at
home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having
the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their
number those who were being saved.”[2]
Isn’t that something? Could it be that the great power—the wonders and signs
that were being done by the apostles—was found in this communal way of life?
Could it be that the power to change the world is found more in the sharing of
what we have, the breaking and eating of bread together, the making sure
everyone has what they need, than it is in miraculous healings and acts of
wonder?
Luke throws a few more hints our way in chapter five, when Ananias and
Sapphira are struck dead. Why do these two members of this first Christian
community suddenly succumb to the shock of death? Was it because of some wrong
teaching they believed? Was it because of their lack of faithful attendance, a
failed Bible quiz, or a failure to appear for prayer meeting? No. They were
struck dead because they “sold a piece of property, [and] kept back
some of the proceeds and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’
feet.”[3]
In other words, this husband and wife had committed the grave error of holding
something back for themselves, or hoarding and hiding something that would have
been beneficial for the community as a whole. Could it be that the greater
grievance to God is not found in the theological and interpretive arguments we
love to have, but in the everyday ignorance of the needs of those around us and
the ways in which we hold on to that which isn’t ours in the first place?
Then there’s the text before us this morning; the text that sets the
stage for the whole scene involving Ananias and Sapphira. Now, we might be
tempted to single out verse 33 as
the proof text for this entire passage (“With great power the apostles gave their
testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them
all.”) That sentence does sound, after all, more like something we
might want to read in the Bible: the apostles giving their testimonies with
great power. But that’s not the whole story; in fact, that verse is smack-dab
in the middle of our passage. Luke tells us: “Now the whole group of those who
believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of
any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great
power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them,
for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what
was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as
any had need.”[4]
Could it be that the power of the apostles’ testimony was found in the
very way they lived together? Could it be that the great power of Christ’s
followers is found not in empirical might, not in cultural dominance, not in
miracle management, but in the very act of placing the needs of others ahead of
ourselves? You know, that might be the very thing that could change the world.
That sort of power may be exactly what it takes to turn things right-side-up.
After all, arguing won’t get us anywhere (Phillip Yancey, an Evangelical
author, once said, “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the
argument,”[5]
and I believe he’s right!). No, arguing won’t get us anywhere. Neither will
miracles. I know that may be a bit of a shock to some of you, but it’s true.
The world is just too skeptical; folks are just too ready with an explanation,
a way to disprove whatever miraculous event we may claim as proof of our
message. There is, however, one thing that is downright impossible to disprove,
one act of great power that cannot be denied or construed, one way of being in
this world that can’t help but cause others to stop and take notice—why it may
even make folks angry at you!
It’s that great power found in Christ to overcome self, to overcome self
and be liberated to the resurrection reality that life isn’t about what you can
get, but what you can give. Eugene Peterson says, "The kingdom of self is
heavily defended territory,"[6]
but the power of Easter’s revelation shows us that the kingdom of self is a
false one, in need of deconstruction, so that we may take hold of God’s calling
on our lives to selflessly serve others, to give more of ourselves away, to see
the needs of those around us as far more important than whatever barriers we’ve
placed between “us and them,” so that we may realize that there is no “them.”
There is only “us.”
So, what do you do with Easter when it’s over? You take it out into the
world and live it! You live into the reality that God has called us—shown
us—that the way of God’s kingdom is one of self-emptying, self-sacrificing
love, that the way of God’s kingdom is a way of seeing the needs of others and
giving all we can in order to meet those needs, that the way of God’s kingdom,
the way of great power, is found not in our strength, correctness, or
influence, but in the deliberate, selfless drive to love God and everyone else,
and to show that love by meeting the needs of those all around us, throughout the
world, until no need is left, and the kingdom of God comes in all its fullness.
Amen.
[1]
Acts 2:3a
[2]
Acts 2:43-47
[3]
Acts 5:1a-2
[4]
Acts 4:32-35
[5] Philip
Yancey, Rumours of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing? (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2004).
[6] Eugene
H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual
Direction, Reprint edition (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1993), 31.
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