My wife, Susan, and I talk from time to time about how strange things are on this side of the pandemic. Susan works in a plant nursery and in the early part of the pandemic, everybody was gardening. So, the nursery had a run on vegetable plants. For the next year, they increased their order of stock because of what happened in the previous year, and then vegetable plant sales dropped off a cliff. No one was gardening anymore, it seemed. How do you plan for something like that when you’re a business and you have to make up your orders months in advance?
One of my hobbies is to smoke meat and one of the impacts of the pandemic was that meat prices skyrocketed. It was very expensive to buy meat. Now, meat prices have dropped back down, and brisket is even on sale at one of our local stores.
Vegetables and brisket prices are minor things. But there have been some really serious impacts because of the pandemic. One which I think we are going to be dealing with for long time is the negative impact that the pandemic had on mental health. In the United States, drug overdose rates among adolescents doubled, and the highest rates were among youths who were male, Hispanic, or black. Also, in the States, there were increases in the number of people reporting symptoms of anxiety, especially in homes that experienced job loss. Here in Canada, StatsCan says that there was a record number of alcohol and drug-related deaths during the pandemic, especially among those under the age of 45.[i]
I’m not a medical person, and I’m not a social scientist, but one of the possible causes of this decline in mental health could have been the impact that the pandemic had on our social connections because, for all of us, those were disrupted. There was a whole year where Susan and I couldn’t hug our adult children who didn’t live at home. Studies have shown that a lack of social connection can be more harmful to your health than smoking, obesity, or high blood pressure.[ii]
One of the many gifts that the Christian church has to offer to the world is community. But what kind of community are we offering? We are not the only group that offers community to human beings. People can go many places for community, for example, they can join a social club or an athletic team. How is the community that we as a church offer different from all those other opportunities? And what is God’s vision for the Christian church and what kind of community does He desire for us to offer to the world around us? Those are the kinds of things that we’re going to be thinking about today. And to help us as we do that, we’re going to be looking at a passage from the Bible, Acts 2:36-47. If you have a Bible or a Bible app nearby, I invite you to turn there now.
This is a continuation of the Bible passage that is usually read on Pentecost Sunday. So some of this background that I am about to share may be a review for you. On that Pentecost Sunday nearly two thousand years ago, people had gathered in Jerusalem from all over the known world for the Festival of Pentecost. Each adult male Jew was required to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year: for the Festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
So there were huge crowds of people from various nations and language groups in Jerusalem at that time. When the Holy Spirit was poured on all who believed in Jesus, and it was accompanied by miraculous signs like the sound of a violent wind from heaven and what seemed like tongues of fire rested on each person. Then those who were filled with the Holy Spirit began speaking in languages that they didn’t know, and the people who knew those languages understood them clearly.
The many pilgrims who heard that sound, saw the tongues of fire and heard the speaking in tongues were very perplexed by all of this. They wondered why these unsophisticated people from the northern region of Galilee were speaking all these languages, and they understood them. I don’t mean to offend the good people of people of Williams Lake, but it would be as if we said today, “Here are 12 people who have come down from Williams Lake, and they know Spanish, Urdu, Hindi, French, and German? How is that possible? We can understand them talking in all these languages!”
The many witnesses of these miraculous signs asked, “What does this mean?” And some thought that maybe they had been drinking too much wine early in the morning.
So Peter got up and began to explain. He then told the crowd that what the people were seeing was what was prophesied centuries ago by the prophet Joel: God was pouring out His Holy Spirit on all people, as He promised He would do.
And all of this, Peter said, was happening because of Jesus. He explained, “Fellow Israelites, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourself know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised Him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him…. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2:22-24, 33).
In other words, here’s what Peter is saying to his audience: First, Jesus is God’s Messiah, and the miracles that you witnessed were proof of that. Second, Jesus was placed in your hands, according to God’s plan, and you, in partnership with others, had Him crucified on a cross. And note that every time Peter is saying “you,” it’s a plural form of the word, meaning “you all.” Peter also said but God has raised Jesus from the dead. And from his position of power at the right hand of the Father, Jesus has received the Holy Spirit from the Father and poured him out on all believers.
Now there are a few important things for us to note here before we go on. First, there is such a thing as corporate guilt. And there are two kinds of corporate guilt that Peter is making us aware of in this passage. First, there’s corporate disbelief. The people listening to Peter saw the miracles of Jesus at some point. Peter is talking to them 52 days after the crucifixion of Jesus, 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, and 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven, yet these people were from places where Jesus had performed miracles, they had witnessed them, and yet they still did not believe.
Then there’s corporate complicity in Jesus’s death. There were people listening to Peter in Jerusalem on that day who had also been in Jerusalem 52 days prior, for Passover, and were likely in the crowd when Pilate brought out Jesus before them and gave them a choice about whether Jesus or Barabbas should be set free. And they had shouted, “Crucify him, crucify him!” referring to Jesus. And when people realized that they were responsible, at least in part, for the crucifixion of the Messiah, they were stabbed in the heart with guilt, and they cried out to Peter and the other apostles, “What shall we do?”
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
With many other words, he warned them and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day” (Acts 2:38-41).
Now, I don’t know about you, but a lot of times when I look at this passage, my attention is drawn to the 3,000. Maybe that’s because as a pastor, I don’t know. But I’ve heard it said that Peter preached one sermon and 3,000 were saved, whereas a lot of pastors preach 3,000 sermons and only one person gets saved. So the number looks kind of impressive when you think about it. But the number is not the most important thing here. It’s not the 3,000 that’s being emphasized. What’s being emphasized is God’s gift to the world that was born that day, which is a God-breathed community of faith.
God’s Gift to the World: A God-breathed Community
And Luke, who wrote Acts for us, goes on to say, in reference to this community of believers, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had a need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:42-47).
And this new community that God created by His Holy Spirit has some very special characteristics that it would be good for us to take note of. First, they had a fourfold devotion, or we could say, ‘a focused passion’. And this fourfold devotion of the community was what actually gave the community life and its God-given character.
And those four foci or devotions are: Firstly, devotion to the apostles’ teaching, which is the message of the good news about Jesus Christ, how He is the Savior of the world, how we have forgiveness of sins in Him, and how we have eternal life from Him, and how He’s going to renew and restore all things. Then there’s devotion to fellowship. Now, this one might need a little explaining because it’s not fellowship in the sense that we may often think about it, such as having coffee and cookies after worship. It’s fellowship in the sense of partnership with one another, specifically our partnership together in the Gospel.
The third focus is devotion to the breaking of bread. So that could be eating together, but it probably also has a sense of sharing Holy Communion with one another, that great and wonderful gift from God. The fourth focus is devotion to prayer. Each of these devotions are really a passionate focus about something pertaining to God. The first passionate focus is devotion to God’s word. The second is devotion to partnering with God and with other people in His mission. The third is devotion to being nourished by God. And the fourth is devotion to communicating with God, both talking and listening. These four devotions are what shaped the community and served as its foundation. And then, because of those things, this community had certain characteristics that it lived out. You can say that these characteristics were the fruit or the results of those four devotions.
The first characteristic was that all the believers were together. There’s a sense of physical proximity with this characteristic, but it also implies that the people in the community were also united in heart and mind. They were on the same page, so to speak. Other characteristics of the community were that people shared resources and gave to those in need, and they met every day for prayer, worship, and teaching in the temple courts. But they also had friendships with one another outside of worship, and they met in each other’s homes to eat together and praise God. Luke tells us that this was a season of favor and growth for the church. Now, there are also other kinds of seasons for the Church too. For example, there have been, and still are today, seasons of persecution. But the main characteristics that were being lived out as God’s community was focused on those main four devotions could be summed up in this way: love for neighbor and worship of God.
Guilt Can be a Gift from God
Now, what does this mean for us here today? To begin with, we can say that there is enough evidence for anyone who has an open mind to see that Jesus is the Messiah sent from God to save humanity. There are Christian apologists who can explain this much better than I can, but we do have the stories from the Bible, which describe for us the various miraculous things that Jesus did, most notably his resurrection from the dead. And that is the main piece of evidence for our faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But we also have the miracles that Jesus is doing now in this world around us, and if we have eyes to see, we will see what he’s doing.
The second takeaway for us is that guilt, including corporate guilt, is an indicator that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. Perhaps you are like me and you try to put your guilt in a corner somewhere where you don’t have to think about it. But it never stays there, does it? It always comes back. And our guilt is actually, in a sense, a gift from God because it tells us that there’s something wrong that needs to be addressed, and the only way to address guilt is through repentance and forgiveness.
Repentance is being so sorry for what we’ve done that we want to turn away from it and seek relief. Note, this is different from being sorry that we got caught and have to face some consequences. That is a key difference. Maybe sorrow for having to face consequences could lead to sorrow for what we have done. But until we’re sorry for what we’ve done, we will never really turn away from it. We might just get better at hiding our sinful actions.
The second part of guilt relief is just as important as the first, and that is because the only relief for our guilt is the forgiveness for all of our sins that Jesus gives to everyone who believes in Him. That’s why he willingly, lovingly went to the cross. He did it because he loves you and the whole world. And on that cross, he more than paid the full cost of forgiveness for all the sins of everyone throughout all of time. So anyone who looks to Jesus in faith has forgiveness of all their sins from him for yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever.
God’s “Buts” Make All the Difference
The thing that makes all the difference, if you think about it, is God’s “but.” Peter said to the crowd before him that day, ‘There was enough evidence for you to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and you played a part in him being nailed to a cross and being killed. But God raised Him from the dead.
The three-letter word “but” is extremely powerful because what it does is negate everything that was before it. So if you say, “I love you, but…” the “but” wipes out the “I love you.” Or if you say, “I intended to make dinner, but…”, the “but” wipes out all your good intentions.
We can go to God and say, “I am a lost and forlorn sinner,” and know that God has a “but” for us. And God’s “buts” for us are” “But I forgive you all your sin,” “But I’ve given you a new life,” “But you will be with me forever,” “But I am always with you, and you are never alone.”
I think that we do need to acknowledge the sin that’s in our lives, the brokenness, the hurt and the pain we’ve caused. But let’s have faith in God’s “buts” because that’s what makes all the difference.
And then, forgiven, and free, we choose to make amends with those whom we have harmed. We don’t do it to somehow complete our forgiveness because our forgiveness already is complete in Jesus. In the joy and the freedom of our forgiveness, we want to make things right for others just as God has made things right for us. We make amends so that the people we hurt can be made whole, they can be restored to whatever extent is humanly possible. We want to bring them back, if we can, to how they were before we harmed them. That’s the goal.
Only in Community Can We Become Who God Intends for Us to Be
The fourth thing that we can draw from this passage is that it is only in community that we can fully become the new person that God intends for us to be. We need to be in a Christ-centered community that loves, supports, and encourages us. But we also need to be in a Christ-centered community where we have opportunities to love, support, and encourage other people. And we need to be in a community that’s doing God’s work, where seeds of faith, hope, and love are planted, watered, and nourished toward maturity.
And this passage also gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves, what kind of a community are we? Are we devoted to the apostles’ teaching? Are we devoted to the partnership we have together in the Gospel? Are we breaking bread together? Are we devoted to prayer? And then, what’s flowing out of that? Are we on the same page in heart and mind? Are we pooling our resources? Are we giving to those in need? Are we meeting regularly for worship? Are we building relationships with our sisters and brothers in Christ outside of Sunday morning?
We Need to be In Community
In 1990, a man by the name of Christopher Knight walked into rural Maine with the sole goal of not having any contact with any other people. He was in complete isolation for 27 years until he got caught stealing from some cabins in the area, and he was brought out of that self-imposed isolation.
When he was interviewed later about his experience, he said this, “It’s complicated. Solitude bestows an increase in something valuable. I can’t dismiss that solitude increased my perception. But here’s the tricky part. When I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. There was no audience, no one to perform for. There was no need to find myself. I became irrelevant.”[iii]
Dear friends, we need to be in community for our own sake, and we need to be in a community that welcomes others for their sake. So, the challenge that I’m leaving with you today is to ask yourself these questions: What role has God given me in this community called the body of Christ? And then, how am I living out that role?
[i] Nirmita Panchal, Heather Saunders, Robin Rudowitz and Cynthia Cox, Kaiser Family Foundation (Internet; available at: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-and-substance-use/; accessed May 23, 2023), and Stephanie Dubois, “Record Number of People Died from Alcohol and Drug Use During the Pandemic: StatsCan,” CBC News (Internet; available at: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/alcohol-deaths-pandemic-1.6712273; accessed May 23, 2023).
[ii] “The Importance of Human Connection,” Canadian Mental Health Association (Internet; available at: https://cmha.ca/news/the-importance-of-human-connection/; accessed on May 23, 2023).
[iii] “Man Who Avoids People Loses His Identity,” Preaching Today (Internet; available at: https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2023/may/man-who-avoids-people-loses-his-identity.html ; accessed June 16, 2023).
(This message was shared at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley BC on June 18, 2023. For more info about WGLC, please go to wglc.org.)
Farewell to Shadowlands 