Thirty years ago, at the first church I served, a male cardinal decided to take up residence in the thick hedge in front of the church. However, it discovered an interloper, another cardinal. But it was not another cardinal; it was the cardinal’s reflection in one of our office windows. Each day, several times a day, that cardinal would attack the window attempting to drive the interloper off. We put a hawk silhouette in the window, but the cardinal was not deterred. After two weeks, it was starting to look ragged and thin.
One afternoon, returning from lunch, I noticed a car parked in the church lot with its windows down. There, inside that car, was the cardinal attacking the interloper in the car’s rearview mirror. I grabbed a towel, snuck up to the car, and captured the bird in the towel. I drove him to a large woodlot ten miles out of town and released him, then returned to the church in triumph, the problem eliminated. Three days later, the bird was back!
I recently launched a sermon series in the Book of Acts, and this week came to the account of Jesus’ Apostles’ first experience of persecution from the Jewish religious leaders. Throughout the gospels, it was Jesus who bore the brunt of their attacks. His claim to be the Messiah, even the Son of God, garnered from them accusations of blasphemy. They decided to get rid of their Jesus problem by telling the Roman governor that Jesus claimed to be a king. In short order, he was crucified, the problem eliminated. Three days later, their problem was back!
Jesus’ disciples were spreading the claim that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. But what threat were a handful of uneducated Galileans? Acts records the Apostles and the other disciples receiving the promised Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Those uneducated men suddenly became skilled theologians masterfully preaching about Christ from the Old Testament. When the religious leaders heard that the Apostles Peter and John had healed a man and were preaching about Christ in the temple complex, they arrested them. But they didn’t know what to do with them, so they warned them not to preach Christ and released them. The Apostles continued to preach Christ!
Two thousand years later, the preaching of Christ and his resurrection continues from the lips of those of us who believe it to be true. As Peter preached that day, there is salvation in no one else. Only by God’s grace, through faith in Christ can a person have their sins forgiven and be reconciled to God. It is not “PC,” nor pluralistic. It is truth, and we will preach it
