The power of His Name

Acts 5.27b-32, 40b-41 ‘We are witnesses to these things and so is the Holy Spirit.’

Revelation 5.11-14 ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth.’

John 21.1-14 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.

 

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‘Having called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name’. (Acts 5.40-41)

We’ll come back to that account of the apostles being beaten up and yet somehow emboldened by the experience.

The Acts of the Apostles is the story of the very earliest days of the life of the Church after the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.

That’s why the first reading at the Eucharist during Eastertide is from the Acts, rather than the Old Testament – had you spotted that?!

Acts is volume two of the Gospel of Luke, as Luke writes to the man who commissioned his work, called Theophilus (a name meaning, ‘Love of God’ or Loved by God),

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1.1-3)

Those forty days after the Resurrection take us to the Ascension of the Lord when the Eleven remaining disciples, with the Virgin Mary, wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost – more of that in thirty-five days’ time.

We began with a beating, a thuggish attempt by the authorities, known as the council, to silence the Apostles from speaking about Jesus, and in the name of Jesus.

They took it, and were emboldened.

This is all a matter of weeks after they had fled Jesus’ sham trial and abandoned him as he hung dying on the Cross.

What a change: from deserters to strong witnesses!

What changed them?

The answer comes in three stages: the Resurrection, when Christ was raised from the dead; the Ascension, when he ascended into heaven; and Pentecost, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

These coming days of our observance of Eastertide reveal the transformative power unleashed that means the Apostles would willingly take a beating, risk death and actually rejoice ‘that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name’.

The Resurrection gave the Apostles the insight to see their lives afresh and make connections with a man who could just have been an inspired guru, wonder worker or insightful teacher, but whom they come to recognise as Son of God.

The recognition is made real on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius, also known as the Sea of Galilee.

There Jesus appears unannounced, unrecognised, at first, until they saw a miraculous haul of fish; they gathered in more fish than they could catch in their own power, even as experienced fishermen.

I wonder what connections went through their mind, now it was interpreted by his Resurrection?

He told us that we were no longer fishermen but fishers-of-men: now we see our task is not to be on the Sea of Galilee but to be drawing people to the life of God in Christ.

All this echoes in our hearts.

He multiplied fishes when he fed the five thousand, now he multiplies the catch from our boat: it’s worth counting them on the shore, 153: is there significance in that number? We just know for us it’s a lot, and the net wasn’t even torn.

All this echoes in our hearts.

He fed the crowd with loaves and fishes that day and now he says, ‘come and have breakfast’ and he gives us bread and fish.

All this echoes in our hearts.

It’s the third time he is revealed to them.

He had already appeared to Mary Magdalene, but the first time Jesus came to the Apostles was in the Upper Room, doors anxiously locked, when he came bringing shalom, deep peace, and breathing the Holy Spirit upon them. (John 20.19-23)

The second time was back in that Upper Room, doors still locked, with Thomas wanting to see what the others had seen the first-time round: and on seeing that it was the Crucified One raised from the dead, with his sacred wounds, Thomas exclaimed, ‘My Lord and my God’. (John 21.24-29)

Now they see him on the Sea of Tiberius, Galilee, their skills are enhanced by him and they are fed by him.

Three appearances.

Once might have been a mistake, twice might have been an accident, three is surely a pattern.

They’re getting it!

He is everything he claimed to be.

He is, for them all, in Thomas’ words, ‘my Lord and my God’.

They’ve come a long way.

And the patterns they see, and that are offered in John’s gospel as we have heard from Easter up to and including today, and will go beyond, are offered to us to make connections with the patterns of who Jesus is and the power he exercises in our lives.

Bear in mind that St John writes immediately after Jesus’ second appearance to the apostles and immediately before the third:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20.30-31)

That’s telling us that we don’t need and won’t get every last detail, but that we are invited to spot the patterns, make the connections, so that we may believe and have life in his name, the very name that the apostles where speaking in the incident we began with.

That’s telling us that we don’t just need to fill our heads with information about God, about Jesus Christ, but that we come to believe and to declare ‘It is the Lord’ when we see wondrous things in our lives.

If all we glean from the readings today is some interesting detail that we may not have known or may have forgotten, then my job as a preacher is not done well.

But if our hearts have been moved to see Christ more clearly in our lives and in our world, then things are happening.

How do you recognise and see Jesus Christ moving in your life and in the world?

Can you see that he will strengthen you in timidity, still your seething fear and satisfy your deep hunger?

Jesus invited the disciples that day to come and have breakfast: now he invites you to be fed by him in his Body and Blood, to believe in his Name and step into his way, and truth and life.