No Other Name

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” – Jesus of Nazareth (quoted at John 12:24).

     It’s planting time. Take a drive or a ride around Franklin and Union and Butler Counties and you’ll see field after field, disked and ready to receive seed. The ground that’s been mostly dormant for the past six months is about to get back to work. Acre upon acre stretches out like a vast canvas, and the art of feeding the world is once again underway.

     Along with the art and science, it takes a fair amount of faith to grow a crop. Will there be enough rain? Will there be enough sun? Will something really screwy happen, like when Hurricane Ike broke the 2008 corn crop in half and made it so difficult to harvest? Only God knows for sure. Meanwhile, the sowing goes on in hope of the reaping.

     Last Sunday, Tim Mohr preached with boldness about boldness. Here’s what usually happens when I hear any kind of teaching on being bold in the Christian faith: I get timid. I see a gap – a broad and unapproachable gap – between the faith of the apostles and my own. What’s wrong with me that people aren’t being healed as my shadow falls across them? Why am I not being openly persecuted for being a Christian? Where’s my bullhorn? Compared to the apostles, nothing I’m doing could qualify as boldness. I pull back. It’s a predictable pattern. Is any of this familiar to you, Church? If so, could I get a digital Amen at some point?  

     The passage Tim taught on was drawn from Acts, chapter 4, the account of Peter and John before the Council of rulers. The apostles’ offense: they were instrumental in the healing of a lame beggar outside the temple gate. You’d think the members of the Council could have been glad for the one who was healed. Or maybe they could simply have been aloof – what’s one more lame beggar to them, healed or unhealed? But they took an intense interest, to the point of having Peter and John arrested, jailed, and dragged in to testify whether they wanted to or not. Regarding this undeniable healing, here’s what the Council wanted to know above all else: “By what power or by what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:7).

     Peter and John could have testified to their great faith, and how they had left everything to be part of the Jesus movement. They could have touted their dedication to preaching the gospel, their regularity in prayer, their sincere devotion to fellow believers. None of it would have been untrue. But the Council hadn’t asked about any of that. It was all about the name. Peter responded with exactly what they didn’t want to hear: “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well” (verses 8-11).

     Take note of the cast of characters in this scene, especially Annas and Caiaphas and all who were of the high-priestly family. These were among those who conducted the kangaroo court that convicted Jesus of “blasphemy” during the night before the crucifixion. They thought they had done away with the preaching and healing and revolutionary ways of Jesus. Once he was in the hands of the Romans, their system was secure again. But the “grain of wheat” had fallen, voluntarily, to the ground – and right before the Council’s eyes, it was bearing “much fruit.”

     Peter and John were simply living out the life Jesus had put into them – his own life. The clarity and boldness Peter spoke with was the result of being filled with the Holy Spirit (verse 8). Jesus had said the Spirit would be like rivers of living water (John 7:38). And it was so.

     Today is the day we tune up our definition of boldness. If a teaching on boldness makes you, like me, shy away from boldness, something is obviously out of whack. Today is whacking day. According to Jesus, out of whose heart would flow these rivers of living water? Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive (John 7:39).  Those who believe in him receive the Spirit, and from their hearts rivers of living waters will flow. Hello, believer! Rivers of living water, flowing from the heart – how bold is that? Is there anyone near you who might benefit from rivers of living water flowing from your heart? Is there any ugly situation, any injustice, any need or desperation at all, that might at least begin to be rectified by a believer-in-Jesus, from whose heart flow rivers of living water? Aside from quenching the Spirit, the rivers will flow. Boldness is a matter of not quenching.

     I don’t have to build a resume of faithful acts, don’t have to compare myself to the apostles, don’t have to work myself into a lather to be bold in the faith. And neither do you, Christian. The very life of Christ is in us. The Spirit will guide; the rivers will flow; the need will be found and met. For each of us, Jesus knows the scale of our mission, exactly. Cooperating with him involves agreeing on the scale, and living out precisely the amount of boldness the moment requires. The grain of wheat fell into the ground, and we are the fruit.

     Kay and I are only now seeing the fruit from seeds planted twelve, fifteen, twenty years ago. Not every “crop” has taken that long to come to harvest, but some do. The boldness we exercised back then would have been difficult to define as such – time has been the one good clarifier. We get the idea, then, that the Lord would be pleased to have his people stay the course of boldness, keep the faith, and live out the life he’s put into us. For, as Peter was compelled by the Spirit to say, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

     In that regard, every season is planting season.

  

Grace and Peace (in the power of Jesus’ name),

 

John