Prepared to testify. Prepared to die.

Sermon for Exaudi – Sunday after the Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

This past Thursday we celebrated again Jesus’ Ascension and His sitting down at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Our Lord, our Savior, our King, our Brother now rules over all things for the benefit of His Holy Christian Church. And one of the first and most important acts of King Jesus sitting on His throne was the sending of the Holy Spirit, which we’ll celebrate next Sunday on the day of Pentecost. But once again we turn back this morning to Maundy Thursday evening and the final instructions Jesus gave to His apostles, much of which centered around the coming of the Holy Spirit, “whom I will send to you from the Father.”

He calls the Holy Spirit by two names in this Gospel: The “Comforter” and the “Spirit of truth.” We’ve talked about the name “Comforter” before. Literally, He’s the “Encourager.” The One who comforts. The one who helps. The one who encourages Christians and urges them on toward faith and toward love. He’s called the Spirit of truth, because everything He reveals and teaches and testifies is true and trustworthy and dependable.

He will testify about Me, Jesus says. He’s referring, first of all, to the testimony the Spirit would give on the Day of Pentecost in the hearts and minds of the faithful. He would testify in their hearts about Jesus, confirming them in their faith in Christ Jesus, teaching them about Christ Jesus, helping them to know Him rightly and to follow Him steadfastly.

He’s also referring to the testimony the Spirit would give in the many miraculous signs He would perform among the believers, including that sign they would exhibit on the Day of Pentecost of speaking in foreign languages. That would be the Spirit’s testimony to the world that the apostles’ preaching was truly from God and not from man. It would be the Spirit’s testimony about Jesus that He was the Christ, as the apostles said, and that all should repent and believe in Him. It would also be the Spirit’s testimony that the Gentiles were included in God’s plan of salvation, as the infant Church wrestled with the issue of how the Gentiles fit it. Those who had doubts about the Gentiles had it confirmed to them by the Holy Spirit that the Gentiles were to be given equal status with the Jews in the Christian Church when the Spirit enabled the Gentile Cornelius and his household to speak in tongues after hearing Peter’s preaching.

And you also will testify, Jesus tells His apostles, because you have been with me from the beginning. Notice, Jesus isn’t talking to all Christians here. He’s talking to those apostles who were with Him from the beginning. It’s eyewitness testimony He’s expecting them to give, eyewitness testimony about Him, about all that Jesus said and did from His Baptism to His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. “This is who Jesus is. This is what He did. This is what He taught. And this is what it means.” That was to be their testimony.

That doesn’t mean they were to forget about the Old Testament. Far from it! They were to expound the Old Testament as Jesus Himself expounded it, as the true Word and teaching of God, as the true history of the world, and as the true history of the people of Israel, all of which was pointing to Him as the Savior of the world and as the great King who would reign forever.

In fact, the apostles were to start with the Jews, with the people of Israel, as they bore witness to Jesus and proclaimed to the Old Testament people of God that their Messiah had come. That Jesus was the Heir of the Old Testament and that He had fulfilled it. That Christ had instituted a New Testament in His blood, and that it was time to repent and believe in Him. The apostles had to be prepared to testify to all these things.

But how would it go for the apostles among the Jews?

They will put you out of the synagogues.

Imagine, having grown up your whole life faithfully attending the synagogue, hearing the Word of God pointing to the coming Christ, then finding the Christ, being sent by the Christ to preach to your brothers and sisters in the synagogue, and then being cast out of the synagogue. Excommunicated. We see it happening to the apostle Paul time and time again, from city to city, from synagogue to synagogue. This is what the apostles had to look forward to.

But it would get worse. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is doing God a service. The Jews were, for the most part, sincere in their persecution of the apostles and of Christians in general. They really thought they were doing the right thing, thought they were serving God by arresting and executing Christians.

How could they do those things to God’s own chosen preachers? Jesus states it bluntly. These things they will do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. Knowledge of religion is worthless; sincerity in one’s religion is worthless; faith itself is worthless, if it is not placed in the true God, if it is not exercised in service of the true God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the One who is revealed both in the Old and in the New Testament. Sadly, tragically, the Jews who rejected Jesus as the Christ demonstrated that they never really knew God the Father, either, and the apostles had to be prepared to die at their hands.

Now, if that was true of the Jews, it would also be true of the Gentiles. We read in the book of Acts how the Gentiles, too, would seek to kill the preachers who preached Jesus as the only true God and who exposed their pagan idols as false gods.

So, again, imagine that you’re one of the apostles. And you’re being told ahead of time that the great mission on which you are being sent will end in your rejection and your death. How on earth did they ever agree to it?

They agreed to it, because they actually believed their own testimony. They were convinced that this Jesus whom they would preach in the world was the true God. What’s more, after seeing Him risen the dead, they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that, no matter how poorly they were treated in the world, Jesus would raise their dead bodies, too. And, of course, they were also persuaded that to deny Jesus before men, to fail to testify when called upon to testify, would be a terrible betrayal of their Lord, for which they would have to answer.

But there was yet another reason why they were prepared to die for their testimony. Because Jesus had promised that it wouldn’t all be in vain. They would be rejected by most, but not by all. Through their preaching and even through their martyrdom, the Lord Christ would gather a little flock to Himself, a little flock of believers who would be saved from eternal condemnation and who would join them, the apostles, at the great Supper of the Lamb.

Here you are today, Christians who have been baptized and have confessed Jesus as the Christ. You are the joy that was set before Jesus, making Him willing to endure the cross and its shame. You are what motivated the apostles to testify and to face rejection and death for their testimony.

Now the question confronts you and me. What am I prepared to do? What are you prepared to do?

Are you prepared to devote yourself to reading and studying the apostles’ testimony? Or will you be satisfied with a cursory knowledge of Scripture? Are you prepared to keep gathering around the Word and Sacrament of Christ, no matter what may try to get in the way? Are you prepared to confess Christ in your daily life with your words and with your actions? And if so, are you prepared to suffer for it, to lose friends for it, to lose money for it, to lose your life for it?

You must be. No servant is above His master. No student is above His teacher. If you would be disciples of Christ, then you, too, must be ready to confess Him and to die for your confession. And if you’re willing to die for it, then you’ll certainly also be willing to lose lesser things than your life for it, won’t you, to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God?

You will be able to make the good confession and to present your life as a living sacrifice—or as a dead one—because you know that Jesus is the Son of God, because you know that Jesus became our Brother in order to die for our sins, because you know that He took up His life again and now reigns at the right hand of the Father. You will be prepared to confess Him and prepared to die for Him, because you know that He has conquered death, that He has overcome the world, and that your confession of Christ, in what you say and in what you do, is the very light that shines in the world through which the Lord Christ will build His Church and make His kingdom come. Amen.