Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let's pray.
Jesus, you are the Word. And we thank you for the Word written.
And we thank you for your spirit that makes your Word alive in us.
And so we ask now that you would be speaking to us, that you would be teaching us and you would be helping us to be conformed to your image in Jesus name.
Amen.
So while they were talking about this, the Scripture says, and you may open your Bible if you'd like to page 861 and listen for God's word from Luke 24:36 and following following the appearance on the road to Emmaus, the disciples were talking about this.
And while they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace be with you.
They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, why are you frightened? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. See that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.
And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, have you anything here to eat?
They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and he said to them, thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Today's passage recounts one of the post resurrection sightings of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke way back in the opening verses of Luke's Gospel. In the introduction we read of how the author has put together an orderly account of those remarkable events that took place regarding Jesus Christ. And for that orderly account we read he is relying the author of Luke's Gospel on what was handed down from eyewitnesses, precisely the kind of eyewitnesses we read about in today's passage.
That word for eyewitness at the beginning of Luke's Gospel in Luke chapter one, that word in Greek is autoptes, which means seeing something firsthand.
Autopties means you are not simply hearing about it or getting a picture of it, but you're actually there in the room when it happened, observing with your eyes. It could also be used in a more technical term for the kind of examination a doctor would do when the patient is right there in front of them. Autoptace.
I still remember in sixth grade discovering firsthand the power of being in the room when it happened, of being an otoptase, an eyewitness.
I was sitting in this particular 6th grade history class when the topic that day was ancient Greece and the distinctions between Athens and Sparta. Sitting immediately to my left was my good friend Jake. Jake had great comedic gifts. He and I would later play major parts in our school's production of Oklahoma, and he would play the part of the peddler, a comedic role. Jake was one of those kids who didn't necessarily have a strong filter, if you know what I mean.
When he would think of something, he would tend to say it, whether it was really appropriate or not. And this could make him a kind of class clown. And he could say things that were really funny and sometimes things that were not so funny. Well, during this particular class, another student who was sitting opposite us, a student named Teresa, asked, raised her hand and asked the question of the history teacher, Mr. Sutton. And in asking this question, she made reference to Jake, who had not been paying particularly close attention to the lecture at that time. But once he heard his name mentioned, immediately he perked up and asked me and the person seated to his left, hey, did Teresa just talk about me? She just talked about me, didn't she?
So then Jake's hand shot up and Mr. Sutton called on him, and Jake said, so are there cows? Were there cows in Greece? Like, Teresa would ask.
And the teacher said, jake, that's not an appropriate question to ask. And then Jake said, see, you didn't call out Teresa when she referred to me. And I just want to show that you prefer her when over me.
So if I had not been there to see what happened next, I might not have believed it. But here is what occurred. So there were about 20 or so students in this class, each on those student desks, you know, where they've got a little desk area and the seat, and they were in two different rows facing the middle, and in the middle there was an aisle, and in that aisle, on one side was a student desk where Mr. Sutton would sit for part of the lecture. And then sometimes he'd get up and walk across to the other side of the aisle where there was a blackboard and write down notes or Other terms and the like. So he was sitting in this student desk at the time Jake made this comment. And immediately after he did, Mr. Sutton picked up the student desk, hurled it across the entirety of the aisle, so it smacked into the blackboard, broke, and fell down beneath it.
Then Mr. Sutton turns to look at Jake, who I will remind you, was sitting right next to me.
I'm immediately to the right of this guy, turns to Jake, utters an expletive which I won't repeat here, and then he says, jake, I've never had someone accuse me of preferring one student to another. How dare you?
Look over to my left, and Jake is trying to slink into his chair, literally disappearing into it. Mr. Sutton was fully red faced. And then, after what seemed like an eternity, I'm sure Jake would have bolted if Mr. Sutton hadn't been between him and the door. After what seemed like an eternity, Mr. Sutton picks up this broken desk and then starts to re initiate the discussion on the difference between Sparta and Athens.
It was the most awkward 20 minutes I have ever witnessed.
But at the end of class, we were dismissed and we went out to the playground.
Well, you can imagine what was talked about that particular day. And if the question was, did you hear what happened in Mr. Sutton's class? Someone else would say, no, that did not happen. You're making that up. No, it totally happened. Now, you might be wondering if your pastor, back when he was in the sixth grade, exercised discretion, restraint, decorum, concern for people's privacy in the wake of such an event. And if I refrained from telling other people what I saw?
No way.
No chance. As a sixth grade student, when do you get front row seats to an event like that? I told everyone.
I even repeated the story so many times to friends of mine who didn't even attend the school that they could repeat lines from my story verbatim. Years later, when you're at eyewitness to remarkable events like that, it's like you're compelled to tell the story.
And what I noticed, too is you feel an obligation to make sure the story gets told correctly. For example, a day later, somebody came up to me and said, hey, did you hear Mr. Sutton threw a desk at one of the students?
I had to say, no, that's actually not what happened. He threw a desk at the blackboard, not at a student.
Someone else said, hey, did you hear that? Jake swore at the teacher, and I had to say, no. No, actually, Jake didn't utter the expletive. The teacher. Did you feel an obligation, you know, to get the story right if you were there, if you were in the room when it happened, if you were an eyewitness. Well, if you're wondering how that story ended, Jake told me later that he and Mr. Sutton talked after class.
Both apologized, both wept.
And the next day Mr. Sutton apologized to the class and shared that he and the principal had talked. As you can imagine would after that kind of an episode. And the principal was quote, understanding, but made it clear no more desks were to be thrown.
And as God is my witness, no more desks were thrown that particular semester.
But one day that desk was thrown. I'm an eyewitness and otoptase to it.
Well, in today's passage we're told of events far more extraordinary than what I observed in that sixth grade history class. In today's text we read of a first century teacher, healer, leader, miracle worker and prophetic figure. A messianic figure representing a promised king for the Jewish people who had been publicly executed and buried three days then appearing alive before his followers eyes.
Can't you understand why these disciples of Jesus Christ would think they're seeing a ghost, an apparition, some horrifying vision from the dead? How can you get your mind around someone who you know you knew well and knew was dead three days and then seeing alive again? There's not a historic precedent for that. And nothing like that has come after. You'd surely be thinking as I imagined they were. The world is coming apart at the seams. They're terrified.
But then we read this figure says to them, why are you frightened and why do you doubt? Look at me.
Touch me. And the risen Jesus shows them his hands and feet. Joy starts to fill the disciples, to fill this room. But there's a lot of wondering and doubt and uncertainty too.
And then Jesus says, hey, hey, do you have something to eat?
You know the kind of thing you might say when you stop by a friend's house, got something to eat and they give him some broiled fish. And it's like they're sharing food again like they did before.
And their teachers there again.
Jesus then teaches them. We read. He begins with what he'd shared with them before and everything written about him in the Hebrew scriptures and how it must be fulfilled and their minds were illumined. We read. Which is precisely the kind of thing that Karen prayed for before the scripture reading this morning. We pray, help us God, by the power of the Holy Spirit. To not just hear the words as they're read, to hear the story of Jesus, but to truly understand them, to hear what God might be saying to us in them.
Jesus explains to the disciples in today's passage how he fulfills the promises of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms, and how the Messiah must suffer and then rise from the dead on the third day.
And he shares with them that repentance and forgiveness of sins are now to be proclaimed to all nations, starting right there, Jerusalem. And then Jesus says to them, you are witnesses of these things. You are witnesses. Now, what does Jesus mean by witnesses?
Well, one way they are clearly witnesses is that they are there in the room when it happened. They are like me in that sixth grade history class. They are seeing these things. They are literally witnessing what occurred. They are filling that role of otoptase, the eyewitness. But the word Jesus uses in today's passage is actually not otoptase.
The Greek word translated as witness in today's text in Luke 24, as opposed to Luke chapter one, is Martus. Martus.
Now that's a word that often shows up in ancient Greek literature and legal context, Refers to someone who gives testimony to the truth in the interest of helping a jury or a judge reach a verdict.
And while martus can refer to an eyewitness, it can also refer more broadly to one who testifies, who confesses, who states what is true before a judge.
And in the development of the New Testament and in the early centuries of the Christian church, that term martus was used less and less often to refer to eyewitnesses. For this was after the time Jesus had died, risen, and ascended into heaven. As the history of the Christian church progressed from there, Martus was less and less referring to Autoptus. Instead, it referred to this person who bore witness to the truth of Jesus Christ, not just to what happened, but what it meant, what the gospel was all about.
That testimony, that testimony that the disciples are then able to give, that they hear Jesus presenting that testimony, is that the promise of the Hebrew scriptures, the promise of God coming to be with God's people in a new way, was fulfilled in Christ.
God's promise of sending liberation to the oppressed, sight to the blind, freedom to the captive, welcome to the stranger, forgiveness to those caught in sin. Those promises were fulfilled through Jesus Christ. That's the good news that Jesus Christ unfolds before his disciples. Eyes and ears and their minds are illumined to grasp it. The promise God had made to God's people of coming salvation, of God's reign of justice and mercy, of sending God's light to all nations. That was mysteriously and Wondrously fulfilled in Christ our Savior's life. Teaching, healing, justice, seeking miracle, working evil, disrupting sin, forgiving oppression, challenging work led, we read, to his death on the cross.
But as Jesus explains, that crucified king then rose from the dead.
The God made flesh in Jesus Christ is not only more powerful than sin, we read, more powerful than the most violent acts the empires of this world can unleash. The God we know in Christ is even more powerful than death. The disciples we read in today's passage were not just eyewitnesses to see the risen Christ. They were witnesses of the gospel, proclaimed about Christ, proclaimed by Christ, and then that they would get to proclaim to the world.
They were witnesses of the gospel that of what Jesus meant.
They were witnesses of what his life, teaching and ministry, his death and his resurrection would mean to the world. And through the course of Christian history, that second meaning of martus of witness became more and more prominent, referring to those who gave testimony to the gospel, even to the risk of death. Martus is where we get the English word martyr, or a person who gives their life, sacrifices their life, loses their life for what they confess, for what they give witness to.
You are witnesses of these things. Jesus says to his disciples.
And in one sense, that statement doesn't apply to us at all.
We weren't in the room when it happens. We aren't filling that role of otoptase of eyewitnesses.
You and I aren't there like I was in that sixth grade history class. But in another sense, Jesus statement absolutely applies to us and to generations of Christians before us and those who will come after us. You are witnesses of these things.
When we consider how that applies to what Jesus taught. When we look at how God illumines the minds of Christ's disciples as he explained the scriptures to them and then tells of how repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations. That absolutely means you and me.
We are precisely those who witness what God has done in Christ, give witness to it, how Christ forgives sins, brings salvation, shows us the way of justice and mercy, and empowers and sends a people to love God and neighbor and show Christ light to the world, even if it risks great cost and sacrifice.
But bearing witness is how generations yet to come get to hear the stories about Jesus and get to hear something else too. What those stories mean. The good news of God's work in Christ and how that brings transformation to the heart, to a community, and to the world.
You are witnesses of these things.
Well, this Past Thursday, someone who had long borne witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ went to be with the Lord.
Marguerite Schuster might not have been there when Jesus appeared to his disciples, but she spent her life testifying to what Jesus meant, to his significance, and to what he means for the church and world today. And that way, she was precisely who Jesus was referring to when he says, you are witnesses of the things.
After graduating from Stanford and pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Fuller, she found herself the only woman in her class at Fuller Theological Seminary. Anyone who knew her could tell you she could be determined, even stubborn, when it came to a particular idea for which she had become convicted. God's providence was one such concept.
Her call to the ministry of preaching was another.
And praise God for that stubbornness. It brought her, in 1987 to this church to serve as the first female pastor in this congregation's history.
She bore witness that women like men, that people, regardless of their gender, could be called to ministry as pastor. And I think, of so many female seminary students this congregation would later support and surround in their journey of preparing for ministry. And how Marguerite's ministry here paved the way for that. Thanks be to God.
A pastor who served as my internship supervisor when I was a Fuller student would tell me how, back when she was a Fuller Seminary student, in the time when Marguerite was serving as pastor here, this pastor, my supervisor, would come to Knox occasionally, even though she wasn't doing an internship here. And the reason she would come if she wanted to soak in to her bones to hear, to see there was a woman preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. She wanted to sit in the pews and just soak that up. And then after that, as she pursued her own call to ministry, if anyone had asked, hey, do you believe in women in ministry? And women in pastoral ministry, she could say, believe it, hell, I've seen it.
I've seen it.
She could see it here.
After five years here, Marguerite went to serve as associate professor of preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary, where she would then help form and inspire generations of preachers. She would later be given the title Harold John Auchinge Professor Emeritus of Preaching and Theology.
Well, I first met Marguerite when I was asked to lead a preaching practicum under her direction at Fuller Theological Seminary. And I'd worked with Ian Pitt Watson before, and he could be relentlessly positive. He would look at what's really great in a sermon and then kind of highlight that.
Not so much with Marguerite.
Marguerite was very critical. She could be very positive and point out where a Sermon had, how should we say, room to grow.
I found her approach and the way she would adjudicate sermons and the write up she would carefully do after a student sermon was delivered, I found them on one hand very bold, quite daunting, but also absolutely compelling.
And I still remember years later, the first time when as your pastor here at Knox, years after I'd started serving as your pastor, way in the back over there, I one day saw Marguerite Schuster. And on one hand it was terrifying because I thought, lord have mercy, she's going to adjudicate my sermons like she had these other students. And she could be very generous too. She always sat in the back because she always thought the music was way too loud.
But she was here and she became a member, was active on our sustainability team and what a witness that is. And I don't know if I've told you this, but when the search committee was considering me as a path to be your pastor some 18 years ago, Jan Sperry, who was stated clerk at the time, was really good friends with Marguerite Schuster. So Jan Sperry asked Marguerite, hey, what do you think of this guy?
And so in part I feel like I owe my pastorate here in part to Marguerite Schuster.
Well, the great homiletician Thomas Long once wrote that the central role of the preacher when they're in the pulpit is not being a herald, not being a storyteller or even a poet, not even a pastor, but the central role of a preacher is this bearing witness, bearing witness to preach. Long said, that's what it means. Long doesn't mean the preacher is an eyewitness to the events we read about in scripture. As the great proclaimer of Christ's resurrection, Mary Magdalene was in the gospels, he means the preacher bears witness to what scripture means, to what the gospel of Jesus Christ means. And that meaning opened up to us by the Holy Spirit gets passed on to generation after generation until it reaches you and me.
And then we surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, including now Marguerite get to be witnesses to Christ says to us, you are witnesses of these things.
And so we are.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
