It is a testimony to the
conviction of the first disciples that anyone believed what must have seemed
less a cleverly devised myth and more just outright nonsense. But people did
believe the eyewitness testimony of these Galilean fishermen and then with
equal passion proclaimed the crucified and resurrected Jewish peasant preacher
Jesus, who they had never seen, to be the Beloved of God and Savior of the
world. Whenever we are tempted to despair of the statistical decline of the
church we would do well to pay attention to the lamp of their prophetic message
shining in the darkness of our time; not because we fear some future final
judgment, but because we are convinced that the same word that captured the
imagination of first century people is equally relevant in the 21st. In that way the prophetic word is always present
and working to capture our imagination and fill us with Holy Spirit passion to proclaim
in word and deed the saving acts of God. So let us pray that the day will dawn
and the morning star will rise in our hearts as it did theirs, and moved by the
Holy Spirit we will make know the power and coming of our Lord Jesus.
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