We are Witnesses to these things

 Introduction

Today is the Octave Sunday of Easter, sometimes referred to as Low Sunday. It’s been a week since we stood witness in this place and heard the good news definitively declared that Christ is Risen and death is defeated. As John Chrysostom’s paschal homily so poignantly proclaims: “Hades was embittered.”

The world is heavy with death. The world is at war. Covid rages on into a 6^th wave. It is increasingly clear that runaway climate change is inevitable. Yet even leaving aside the catastrophe that is our present moment in history, death is always quite close to us in our every day lives. People get sick, accidents happen, life expires. Our one certainty in life is death. But last week we did something preposterous. We stood in this place and bore witness to the Risen Christ in our midst. We became, even if just for a moment, contemporaries of the disciples as witnesses to the Resurrected One. So, while we may have come here grieving, and may have left here only to find more cause for grief, nevertheless this grief was inflected by the contrapuntal harmony of hope that the first fruits of the resurrection have given voice to.

We’ve had a week to process what we witnessed and now the lectionary leads us into a contemplation on the nature of Christian witness. As Peter and the apostles said before the council, “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus…and We are witnesses to these things.”

1.     The testimony of two or three witnesses

a.     The drama that the disciples find themselves in, in the book of Acts, is a court-room type situation. They have been arrested for preaching the same seditious message that Jesus had just been crucified for and they were imprisoned overnight. Yet an Angel of the Lord had delivered them from captivity, and they were back to their old tricks, much to the chagrin of those who thought they were dealt with.

b.     So, Peter and the disciples find themselves in front of the council, accused of criminal activities. But according to the Law of Moses, criminal charges must be sustained through the testimony of witnesses, as Deuteronomy 19 reads:

                                                    i.     A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offence that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. If a malicious witness comes forward to accuse someone of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days, and the judges shall make a thorough inquiry. If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, then you shall do to the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other (Dt. 15.19, NRSV).

c.     In our Acts lesson, Peter and the disciples have been charged with seditious preaching, but Peter turns the table on this charge in a couple of subtle ways that show an ingenious application of this Deuteronomic law. First, Peter points out that it is not he and the other disciples that are doing something criminal, rather, they are simply speaking the truth about the resurrection of the one who had been murdered at this council’s hands. So, the council’s charge against them is that of a malicious witness, therefore it must be taken before the Lord for determination. Second, and more importantly, Peter does not just simply testify on his own behalf, he points out that the disciples, as a group, are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit! Peter’s testimony is not grounded merely in his own self-testimony, it satisfies the condition for multiple witnesses that Deuteronomy demands, and on that basis, both justifies himself and the apostles and convicts the council.

d.     While this defense enraged the council, nevertheless, it seems to have been based on sound jurisprudence. The passage continues on beyond what our lesson included to describe how Gamaliel, one of the most distinguished teachers of the Law, stood up and advised the assembly to indeed follow the Deuteronomic law in discerning amongst witnesses. “Fellow Israelites,” he said, “consider carefully what you propose to do to these men…in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them – in that case, you may even be found fighting against God!” And being convinced of these things, the council called the apostles back in and, once again ordering them not to speak in the name of Jesus, nevertheless let them go their way.

2.     Jesus Christ, the faithful witness

a.     Peter’s appeal to the Holy Spirit’s witness is instructive for the character of Christian witness more generally. For Peter is an unreliable witness. He has proven himself a false witness during the passion of our Lord by denying him three times. In our gospel lesson today, Thomas doubts the testimony of the other disciples who claim to have seen the risen Lord, and well he might, for those same disciples doubted the testimony of Mary who was the first witness of the resurrection. Human testimony is always prone to an infinite regress of doubt, for who can witness to the truthfulness of any given testimony without themselves being implicated in that economy of doubt?

b.     There is only one whose testimony is sure, as our lesson from the Revelation of St. John says, “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” All Christian testimony begins from the reliable self-testimony of Jesus of Nazareth. As John’s gospel reminds us, Christ is the light of the world, and he testifies truthfully about himself that he is that light.

c.     But Jesus does not simply insist that his testimony be received as true, though it is. Instead, he points to the testimony of his father who sent him. Christ’s witness about himself is both true in itself, and is validated by the concurring witness of the Father who sends him and the Spirit who empowers him, thus satisfying the Deuteronomic condition for the validity of witnesses even as his own self-testimony is utterly sufficient in itself. Jesus is the man whose witness is faithful, and it is this faithful witness that has been handed over to the church. While our witness is necessarily incomplete, broken, faltering, and limited, like lamps trying to illuminate the sun, nevertheless, the Son’s light provides its own illumination and fills the eyes of all nations, even those who pierced him.

3.     And we are Witnesses to these things

a.     Well so what, Jesus may be a reliable witness, but what about the witness of the church? For we remain, like Thomas, like the apostles before the Council, stuck in the economy of doubt, holding forth a partial witness, shining a flickering light from cracked vessels in hopes of being faithful to the true light of the world. Every other day we are confronted in the media and in our own lives with the abject failure of Christian witness. We have, like Peter, like Thomas, like all the disciples, made ourselves out to be false witnesses, abandoned our Lord and cherished our doubts more than we ought. David Widdicombe used to exclaim from time to time, “Nobody really believes the gospel.” It’s because we forget, we turn away, we look up and all we see is the clouds and remain blind to the sight of the Lord’s coming.

b.     But that’s the point. Our witness is incomplete, it is mired in doubt and hypocrisy, but we are not testifying on our own behalf. Our witness is not a witness about the church, we are witnesses of the Risen Lord Jesus whose Spirit has been given to us to testify on his behalf. His witness is faithful, His witness is sure, and it is to and in His name that we witness. The disciples saw the risen Lord, yet their witness was no more sure because of that than ours is now. While we may live 2000 years out from the possibility of placing our fingers in Christ’s wounds, it is not actually the powers of sensible perception that guarantee our witness, rather, as Thomas confessed, it is the powerful presence of Christ that draws forth our witness such that we truly can proclaim with the apostle, “My Lord and my God.”

c.     On this Octave Sunday of Easter, we gather to worship the risen Christ, to be reminded of what we forget, to hear the gospel proclaimed and receive Christ’s body in the Eucharist. For it is in Word and Sacrament that God has been wholly revealed, if not totally. And so, our witness goes on, imperfect, cracked, caught up in the economy of death and doubt, yet sure, because Jesus is the faithful witness by whose light all the nations of the Earth can see beyond the shroud of death.

Amen.