Standing Under the Scriptures
May 31, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Acts 1.1-13: I am attaching my book’s first chapter in support of my oft-repeated contention that Pentecost is one of the three great festivals of the Christian year. My interpretation of the event is unique to me so far as I know, but insofar as it is valid it not only has the relevance that I ascribe to it but bears significantly on Alister McGrath’s recent Gifford Lectures relating to natural theology, as I hope to show you and also Alister.

John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15: Here Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as the Counselor who will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Our first reading last Sunday, Acts 1.15-26, told how the disciples chose a replacement for the betrayer Judas, so as to make up again the full number of the Twelve. This could be seen as a mere formality. But we thought there was more to it than that. It takes place in an interim time, subsequent to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension but prior to Pentecost. Thus, although his earthly ministry has been completed, its implications for the world and for the disciples themselves are still unclear. Further, the disciples in this time would still have been contending with the shock of Judas’ betrayal. Although this was primarily of Jesus, it was also of them as his close associates over a long and intense period. In this situation they are obedient to Jesus’ earlier command to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high. But they do not take it as an occasion to lapse into passivity. Instead, at Peter’s instigation they do what falls to them to do, which is to choose Matthias to be one of them. And Peter is not without an intimation of essence of their eventual mission. For he speaks of Judas’ replacement as becoming “with us a witness to Jesus’ resurrection.”

We took the foregoing as affording guidance for us. In our own lives situations arise in which it is unclear what, as Jesus’ followers, we are called to do. But like the disciples we do not need to remain pending until final clarification. Instead we can and should take the action that lies at hand, trusting that further light will be given to us Indeed, taking such action is likely to enable us to see further along the way.

We had some discussion of the significance of the number twelve. It harks back evidently to the original twelve tribes of Israel and thus affirms the continuity of the disciples with Israel’s tradition. We spoke rather more of Judas’ betrayal and its meaning. He had been exposed to the presence and teaching of Jesus, the incarnate Son, for however many years his earthly ministry lasted. Yet in the end he was still unconverted. How could this be? Does it imply some limitation of God’s power? We concluded that it showed instead the greatness of God’s power, in that he is able to use even such a dereliction for the accomplishment of his purposes. As for what motivated Judas in his betrayal, the passage in speaking of his buying a field with his reward hints at a preoccupation with material things, to the point of rendering him unable to see beyond to the reality which Jesus embodied. But he is not excused thereby---nor are we for our similar preoccupations. The judgment on him is made graphic in the passage: “falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.”

The accommodation of the disciples to Judas’ betrayal was further enabled by the connection they made with Psalm 69.30 as quoted in our passage.

Let his habitation become desolate,
and let there be no one to live in it.

This connection accords with a primary purpose of our class, which is to equip us with the biblical framework enabling the meeting of challenges otherwise beyond our capacity.

We remarked also on the choosing of Matthias by lot. In the Old Testament this is a standard way of determining God’s will. It signifies the disciples’ intention to conform to God’s purposes rather than to rely on their own devices, which we can emulate even if we do not cast lots.

Our second reading, John 17.6-19, similarly concerned an interim situation and thus was similarly appropriate in anticipation of Pentecost. Here however the interim is between Jesus’ disclosure of his impending crucifixion and its taking place. The passage comes from the concluding part of Jesus’ farewell discourse. Heretofore he has been speaking to his disciples; now turns to praying to his Father on their behalf. His concern is with their remaining in the world as he himself leaves the world. He speaks of his stewardship of them as those whom his Father has entrusted to him. Saying that his prayer is for them rather than the world, he draws a distinction between them and the world. They are not of the world as he is not of the world. Indeed, on this account the world hates them. Nevertheless he does not ask his Father to take them out of the world but only to protect them in it. And finally he says, “As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

Here we have an anticipation of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance in John 20. For there, after imparting the Holy Spirit to his disciples, he declares, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” This is John’s equivalent of the Pentecost event in Acts 2, the anticipation of which we saw in our first reading, from Acts 1. But our second reading may make us wonder why, if the world is so hostile and dangerous a place as here represented, Jesus should send his disciples into it. The answer lies in the evident duality of the world. On the one hand it has the character our passage ascribes to it. But on the other, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son….(John 3.16) This we may take to mean that it has that within it which is though dead in itself can be vivified through God’s Holy Spirit as brought by Jesus. And in sending not just his disciples but also his followers coming after them into it, he is not being heedless of them. Instead, as verse 13 tells us, he does so that his joy, the joy he has as the divine Son, may be fulfilled in them---and thus also in us.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted