By What Power?
a sermon based on Acts 4:5-12
by Richard Gehring

            Just the other day, Christians from across the country gathered in Washington, DC in a peaceful gathering to call for an end to the war in Iraq.  An ecumenical group calling themselves Christians Peace Witness for Iraq gathered to mark the end of the Obama administration's first hundred days, and calling on the U.S. government to bring home the troops, rebuild Iraq, put an end to torture and seek a lasting peace throughout the Middle East.

            At the group's gathering two years ago, some 3000 people showed up for prayerful witness.  Of these more than 200 were arrested for illegally demonstrating in front of the White House.  This year's event included plans for a similar protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building.

            In explaining their reasoning for taking such action, Christian Peace Witness for Iraq states, “For 2,000 years, Christians have taken public, prophetic and risky steps to put into practice the unquenchable, unifying divine love proclaimed and lived out by Jesus.  In the face of the growing emergency in Iraq, it is crucial that we as people of faith take loving and determined action to make unmistakably clear the need for a new course in Iraq and in the world. There are many different, powerful ways to do this. Nonviolent civil disobedience is one of these powerful ways.”(http://www.christianpeacewitness.org/nonviolentcd)

            This quandary of having to choose between one's religious beliefs and the law of the land is the same place in which Peter and John find themselves today's passage.  This incident falls immediately on the heels of the episode in the temple that we looked at last week in the previous chapter of Acts.  As you may recall, Peter and John healed a lame man who had been begging at the temple gate for many years.  When the people inside the temple saw what had happened, they gathered around to see how it had occurred.  And the apostle Peter used this event as an opportunity to publicly proclaim the good news of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

            As we come to Acts 4, then, we discover how different people responded to Peter's preaching.  Many, we are told, responded favorably and joined the growing movement of those who followed Jesus as the Messiah.  Their numbers swelled to 5,000up from the 3,000 who joined the early church at Pentecost.

            But the authorities were clearly less impressed with the message that Peter and John proclaimed.  You see, the priestly party that ran the temple was the party of the Sadducees.  And the Sadducees did not believe in any resurrection from the dead.  That was one of the key differences between them and the other major party we read about in the New Testament, the Pharisees.

            The Pharisees believed that there would come a day when God would intervene in history and bring back to life all the righteous persons who had faithfully followed God's law.  The priests of the Sadducees, however, rejected this notion.  So the priests were not too happy to have anyone preaching about resurrection in their temple.  And they were especially upset that it was coming from the followers of some radical that they had finally put to death several months earlier.  Therefore, the temple police arrest Peter and John, and put them in jail overnight until the Sanhedrin, the temple's ruling council, can meet the next day.  Our text for today then relates what happens in that hearing before the Sanhedrin.

            Calling Peter and John before them, the high council demands to know by what power and in whose name they have done what they did.  Refusing to be intimidated by the elders and priests and scribes who sit in judgment of him, Peter continues to preach in the same vein that he did to the crowds in the temple.  He resists the notion that he and his fellow disciple have done anything wrong.  After all, how can they be condemned for healing a lame man?  Kindness and mercy are key ideals in Judaism.  So it seems rather silly to arrest someone for an act of charity.

            But, of course, the real issue is not the healing itself.  It is the challenge which these upstarts present to the established authorities who run the temple.  Again, though, Peter does not back down.  He claims a higher authority in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the one whom God resurrected.  This man, he claims, is the Messiah, the fulfillment of scripture and the one and only name which brings true healing and salvation.  It is a very bold and defiant statement which Peter makes.

            At first, the council is so taken aback that they aren't sure how to respond.  They had probably thought that these uneducated, unsophisticated Galilean fishermen would be completely awed to stand in the presence of the mighty and learned Sanhedrin.  They assumed it would be no problem to intimidate these common, ordinary folks into keeping quiet and cease causing any disturbance.  Peter's fearless, heartfelt and well-reasoned defense of his actions comes as quite a surprise.

            In the verses that follow, we find that the Sanhedrin, after consulting among themselves, decide to give the disciples a stern warning not to teach any more in the name of Jesus.  Peter and John are very clear that they are not going to abide by this directive, but the Sanhedrin merely threatens them and releases them without further punishment.  For the time being, they are reluctant to stir up trouble by imprisoning a couple of simple fishermen who have wowed the crowds with an apparent healing.

            This is the first time that the followers of Jesus have a run-in with the temple authorities in Jerusalem, but it is far from the last such incident.  In the very next chapter, all the apostles are arrested when they are once again found preaching in the temple.  Then, when an angel miraculously releases them from prison in the middle of the night, they go right back to the temple where they are once more arrested.  This time, the Sanhedrin has them flogged before releasing them.  The persecution of the church escalates from there.

            In chapter six, Stephen is arrested and brought before the council.  After a very long speech which greatly angers his listeners, he is stoned to death.  In chapter 8, we are told of a great persecution, headed by a Pharisee named Saul, that results in many church members leaving Jerusalem.  Then, after Saul's own miraculous conversion in the next chapter, he has to sneak out of town in the middle of the night to escape being killed himself.  In chapter 12, King Herod joins in the persecution by killing the apostle James and having Peter arrested, which greatly pleases the Sanhedrin.  And, eventually, the apostle Paul is also arrested on trumped-up charges by the temple police and sent to Rome for a hearing before the Emperor himself.

            These are only the clashes that the church had with the authorities in Jerusalem.  I haven't even mentioned the many times that Paul and his companions are arrested, flogged and stoned in their travels through Greece and Asia Minor, spreading the good news of the resurrection.  The lesson that I derive from all these incidents is that there must be something about the resurrection that is very threatening to the ruling powers.

            The threat, it seems to me, is this:  the authorities are intimidated by the power of the resurrection.  These rulers have great power.  They claim the power to tax, the power to judge sins, the power to punish wrongdoers: even the power to kill.  But all of this power pales in comparison to the power exhibited by God in the resurrection:  the power to overcome death itself.  In this great act, God negates the greatest power that the ruling authorities have.  Thus the disciples who bear witness to the power of the resurrection cannot be threatened, intimidated, coerced or cajoled into anything that they believe is not in line with God's will.  The authorities no longer have power over those who do not fear even death itself!

            Today, as followers of the Jesus to whom Peter bore witness, we live in that same resurrection power.  We, too, serve a power far greater than any nation or state.  We, too, find ourselves at times in conflict with earthly powers who demand our allegiance in ways that do not always align with our understanding of the one who was resurrected.  And when this occurs, we, too, have an obligation to witness to the ruling powers concerning the far greater power of the God who brought Jesus back to life and seated him on a throne far above any other principality or power.

            Now, we have the fortune of living in a nation whose government is founded upon the principle of religious freedom.  The very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that right.  But what exactly does religious freedom mean in our current context?  The courts have generally interpreted the first amendment as a guarantee of religious belief, but not necessarily of religious expression.  In other words, our constitution says that we may believe whatever we want, but we are not necessarily allowed to act on that belief if our government decides that such actions run counter to their goals.

            For example, in the late 1980's, Native Americans in Oregon challenged a state law that barred them from using the drug peyote in their religious ceremonies.  From the perspective of the Indians, their use of peyote was a sacrament akin to Christians' use of wine in communion.   More recently, a Brazilian church group in New Mexico was allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court to use a sacramental tea that contains a hallucinogenic substance.

            Such cases may seem far removed or even trivial to us.  But the principle that is at stake is the same one which Peter and John spoke about before the Sanhedrin:  who has ultimate authority, government or God?  And in the U.S. Constitution, acts of Congress and Supreme Court rulings, no matter what they may be, all assume that the final answer to that question must be determined by the government.  But we who live as a resurrection community must always recognize the higher power of God in Christ.

            The fact is that our ideals, based on Biblical values, may bring us into conflict with the ruling authorities of our time over issues ranging from immigration to abortion to war.  It is easy for us to simply give in, to throw up our hands and say, "Well, there's nothing we can do about it, anyway."  But to do so is to allow the earthly powers under which we live to have greater authority than Christ.  To do so is to deny the power of the resurrection in which God demonstrated who is truly in charge.

            Let us look to the example of Peter and John and the other faithful apostles who stood up to the ruling authorities in the book of Acts.  Let us be inspired by their example if and when we find ourselves in conflict with the rulers of our day.  And let us live in the ongoing and ultimate power of the resurrection.