Well, we’re here at last in Rome.  It’s been a year-long trip for us at Blythwood with rest stops for Advent and Lent.  All that Jesus began.  All that the Spirit continues through his church. ”  Someone has described this wonderful book like this:  “Before Peter gives his first sermon in chapter 2, Luke gathers people from Jerusalem, Asia, Egypt, and Rome.  Paul preaches in the intellectual marketplace of Athens, he is driven out of the religious centre of Ephesus, and he finds hospitality on the insignificant island of Malta…. The apostle Matthias and the prophesying daughters of Phillip appear and disappear on the road as abruptly as tollbooth attendants. Rhoda and Eutychus enliven the journey with their excitement on one hand, and their falling asleep and falling out a window on the other. Lydia and the islanders of Malta offer hospitality sorely lacking elsewhere.  And Peter, who would seem to be a major figure in the journey, simply disappears without warning or explanation… An angel directs Philip to a deserted place during the heat of the day, where he encounters a marvellous Ethiopian eunuch who hears the gospel eagerly.  The gift of the Holy Spirit is promised to those who repent and undergo baptism, but it falls on the Gentile Cornelius, along with his family and friends, while Peter is still in the process of explaining Jesus to them.”  We’ve read of and travelled with Paul - a man who once breathed threats and murder against followers of Jesus; a man who was chosen by God to bring God’s name before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel (because the good news of Jesus is for everyone).  A man who has known encouragement and imprisonment and welcomes and riots and shipwreck and throughout it all the presence and promise of the God to whom he belonged.

You know it happens very often that when we finish a series here at Blythwood I’m a little sad about it.  Do you ever feel that?  The thing about the end of this series as we come to the 28^th chapter of Acts is that it’s not really an ending at all.

The story of all that Jesus began and all that Jesus does in and through his church, through the power, strength, comfort, and encouragement of the Holy Spirit, is ongoing.  It’s the same Spirit; the same story; the same song.  We’ve said throughout these weeks that we don’t throw tradition away.  At the same time and with the Spirit’s help, we imagine and enact new ways of telling that story and singing that song.  It’s the same Spirit/story/song all around the world.  In Acts 28, the good news has come to the ends of the earth as promised.  Rome.  The centre of the power.  The centre of the universe.  We get this.  Torontonians have made this claim for years, not without a little irony, I’m sure.  The centre of the universe.  We get so-called centres of power.  Washington.  Beijing.   

I say so-called because here is our message.  The universe has a different centre now.  Paul and his companions and the followers of Christ who have come out from Rome to meet him walk into the city, and you can imagine the scene.  All around them are temples and statues and the Colosseum and all the things that comprised ancient Rome, and if you asked somebody the question “Whose power is at work in the world?” the answer probably wouldn’t have come back “The power that is at work in this small group of people that are surrounding a man who is in chains.”

The thing is, empires come and go.  Dynasties come and go and leave little behind but ruins.  The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.  So where are we going to find ourselves in relation to this story?  In a way, this is another kind of triumphal entry, isn’t it?  Much like the one we remember every Sunday before Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Jesus entering Jerusalem in the power of love and humility and sacrifice and service.  This is our Lord.  This is the power at work in the world. 

It’s an old story, and it’s the same story, and it’s for everyone.  It is for everyone.  There’s no immediate meeting with Roman officials or Caesar himself.  Paul is allowed to live by himself in a sort of house arrest.  What’s the first thing Paul does?  He calls together the local leaders of the Jewish community.  This was always Paul’s custom because the good news is for everyone.  Nothing has changed in that regard.  All who are thirsty is what we sing.  All who are weak.  Come to the fountain.  Dip your heart in the stream of life (very Baptist-y that).  Immerse your heart.  Let your heart swim in the stream of life and stay there.  Let your heart be immersed in the tide of the love of Christ and let that tide bring you to shore. Let it bring you home – the place where we are welcomed and accepted and loved and forgiven and transformed.

This is the invitation.   Paul is a servant and a witness.  We are called to be servants and witnesses.  The message is for everyone, and Paul always started with his Jewish brothers and sisters.  It was through their people that God brought his salvation plan about.  Paul follows his usual method.  He tells them what’s been going on.  He’s done nothing against his people or the customs of his ancestors.  He’s done nothing against the laws of Rome.

The good news is blameless, you see.  The gospel is blameless.  Paul is about to share the good news.  What he calls the hope of Israel here.  Not many weeks ago we considered the words “Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Peter 3:15-16)

The world needs more gentleness and reverence, does it not?  May God grant us those things.  The world needs hope, does it not?  This is for all of us.  I’ve often said I believe that there is a great willingness out there to hear about faith.  It’s not universal, of course.  For some I suppose faith might be better left with politics and money, a thing not to be spoken of in polite company – which is kind of funny considering how many people base their lives on one of those things.  God grant us discernment and gentleness and reverence in any case.  Don’t let the offence of the cross be our offensiveness, in other words.

The gospel of Jesus is blameless.  This means that we have nothing of which to be ashamed when it comes to the good news of Jesus.  I said two weeks ago Paul was a beauty.  What an example.  As he wrote to the Christians of Rome some years earlier – “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)  We have nothing of which to be ashamed when it comes to Jesus.  We have turned the good news of Christ into things that are not good news.  We have mixed it up with political power.  We have thirsted after temporal power.  We have twisted the gospel to justify all kinds of things that run directly counter to the good news of Christ.  There may be times where we’re called to apologize for and turn away from what is done in the name of Christ. 

Paul’s not ashamed, and his task is to be a servant of Christ and a witness for Christ.  These Jewish leaders in Rome tell Paul, “We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported anything evil about you.  But we would like to hear from you what you think, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.” Acts 28:21-22)  They want to hear more!  Paul is never one to pass up an opportunity to speak and to speak at length.  They come to his lodgings in great numbers, and Paul speaks from morning to evening (nobody falling out of any windows here).  Paul tells them about Jesus from the law of Moses and we remember how Paul put the message when he was in front of King Agrippa and it might have sounded something like that here: “To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place, that the Messiah must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.” (Acts 26:22-23)

Because this good news is for everyone.  Paul has done his job. He’s done what he has been called to do just as we are called to do what God calls us to do – serve and witness to the mighty works of God.

The faithfulness of our witness, the worthiness of our witness, is not to be measured in the response.  The worthiness of our witness lies in our faithfulness in living out and telling of the love and grace and mercy and justice and faithfulness of God – the Holy Spirit helping us.  Results are, as they say, mixed.  Some were convinced by what he said, while others refused to believe.  We’re talking now about the mystery of belief and the corresponding mystery of unbelief.  “Why wasn’t there a wholesale turning toward Jesus on Israel’s part in the first century?”  I say leave it to the mystery of faith and remember that God has not forsaken any people group.  We might look at a family (our own family maybe) and say “How do people raised the same way react so differently to the good news of Jesus?”  Why doesn’t everyone get it?  I hope it doesn’t surprise you to hear that we don’t have every answer.  I say “Leave it to the mystery of faith,” and you may answer “Well, what’s the mystery of faith?”  Here it is.  God plays a role in faith.  We play a role in faith.  Let us not get too self-congratulatory that we have “gotten it”.  Let us not get too condemning that others haven’t “gotten it”.   

Paul notes that the prophet Isaiah talked about listening and not understanding, looking but not perceiving.  Of hearts grown dull and ears hard of hearing rather than understanding with hearts and turning and being healed.  Let us not turn this into an anti-Semitic thing and remember that God has not forsaken or forgotten anyone, least of all the children of Abraham.

Let us rather look to ourselves here and be challenged as Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah.  Let us pray that God would keep our hearts from growing dull.  Let us pray that God would enlighten the eyes of our hearts.  That our ears would be attentive to the many ways in which we hear God’s voice and that our eyes would ever more be coming to see as God sees.   We talked about how the church has gotten it wrong through the years. We might ask what future generations might say about our own.  What did we overlook?  What did we miss?  All the while asking for God’s grace and forgiveness, as we ask too for the enablement to be the kind of people and church through whom God is turning the world right-side up.

He lived there two whole years at his expense.  We don’t know how it ended up for Paul.  Church tradition has it that he died in Rome.  When we think back to those grief-filled parting scenes in the last third of Acts, it seems Luke is hinting at that end for Paul.  Here’s the thing though.  It was never about Paul.  Paul was not the star of the show any more than Peter and John were.  It was never about us either, hard as that might be for some of us to hear.  Following Christ is not primarily about self-fulfillment or your own personal spiritual journey.  It’s about being caught up in God’s grand salvation plan in Christ and being part of the Spirit-filled and Spirit-powered and Spirit-guided church that Christ left behind to continue his work until that day when we see him face to face and all things are fulfilled, and we shall be like him, and we shall know even as we are known.

In the meantime, the work goes on.  Paul welcomed all who came to him.  You know he talked to his guards, and as someone has said, it wasn’t just about the weather or the results of the most recent gladiatorial games.  He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.  Whose power is at work in the world?  The Lord’s.  The same old story and the same old song.  The disciples asked, “Is this the time you’re going to restore the kingdom?”  “It’s not for you to know,” came the answer.  But you have received power from the Holy Spirit to be Christ’s witnesses from Toronto to the GTA to Canada to the ends of the earth.  The word goes on unhindered – not because no one or nothing is trying to hinder it, but because you can’t stop it.  When is the end the beginning?  When we add our names to the list of people through whom the mighty acts of God are ongoing and new.  Names like Stephen. Elizabeth.  Candi.  Priscilla.  Lydia.  Armida.  Eutychus.  Dave.  Phillip.  Liz.  Jason.  Bill.  Rhoda.  Nicole.

It’s the same Spirit, same story and the same song.  May God’s Spirit enable us to continue to tell it and live it and sing the good news of Christ Jesus until the day when we all sing together.