Sermon Text: Acts 4:23-31
Date: January 26, 2025
Event: The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
Acts 4:23-31 (EHV)
After Peter and John were released, they went to their own friends and reported everything the high priests and the elders had said. 24When they heard this, with one mind they raised their voices to God and said, “Master, you are the God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. 25By the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David, your servant, you said:
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26The kings of the earth take their stand,
and the rulers are gathered together
against the Lord
and against his Anointed One.
27“For certainly, in this city both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and people of Israel, were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28They did whatever your hand and your plan had decided beforehand should happen.
29“Now Lord, look at their threats and give to your servants the ability to keep on speaking your word with all boldness 30as you stretch out your hand to heal and as signs and wonders take place through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31After they prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken. Also, everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Rejection Is Not Failure
When plans fall apart, it might leave you feeling like you failed. But the things that caused (or hastened) the failure were often out of your control. The picnic plans fall apart because of the rain. The project at work gets cut because of budget decisions far above your job description. The car you intended to keep for a decade or more is totaled because someone wasn’t paying attention and ran into you.
We start second-guessing ourselves, “If only I had picked a different day for the picnic,” “If only I had lobbied to my boss’s boss’s boss to get funding,” “If only I had left the house just a couple of minutes earlier.” And yet in all of those cases, you couldn’t have known and probably you couldn’t have done anything to change things. Couldn’t it have just as easily rained on your alternate picnic day? You don’t control the weather! Sometimes, things, even significant things, fail or go the way we didn’t want them to go, but that’s through no fault or action on our part; it’s just the way things go.
This morning, as we continue our journey through the Epiphany season, we get a clearer and clearer picture of who Jesus is. Last week we saw him as the miracle worker (turning water into wine in Cana) whose miracles pointed to his message that he is, in fact, the Savior. This week, in our Gospel, we see Jesus preaching early on in his ministry—to the people of his hometown even! He’s sharing the very message that the miracles all served to highlight. But what is the result? Not faith but utter rejection; it was rejection so strong that they would sooner murder Jesus, this hometown boy, rather than listen to another word from his lips.
Jesus’ preaching in Nazareth is not our explicit focus this morning, but it is an account similar to our Second Reading. In the early days after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, the apostles spent a lot of time preaching the good news about Jesus’ victory in Jerusalem—the very place where Jesus said they would start their witnessing work. But, of course, the people who didn’t like Jesus and worked to have him executed just a few months earlier are still in power and, unsurprisingly, are very upsert that these former disciples of Jesus are keeping the name and teaching of this man in front of the people. They saw Jesus as a threat and they see those keeping his memory alive as a threat as well. This was especially concerning for them because the apostles’ work often included working miracles in Jesus’ name which, once again, underscored the validity of their message and also Jesus’ own ministry and his claims about himself.
The leadup to this scene in our Second Reading starts with one of these miracles. Back in Acts 3, Peter and John met a man who was begging in the temple because he had been crippled from birth. Peter told him to look at them. Then Luke tells us, “The man paid close attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I will give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!’ Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately the man’s feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk. He entered the temple courts with them, walking, jumping, and praising God” (Acts 3:5-8).
This, understandably, caused quite a commotion. It gathered a crowd of some size, enough for Peter to take the opportunity to proclaim God’s Word, both law and gospel, to those who came to see what had happened. He gave all glory for the miracle healing to Jesus and then underscored the purpose of Jesus’ work—the forgiveness of people’s sins, even the sins of crucifying the Savior. Peter ended his message by saying, “God raised up his Servant and sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you away from your wicked ways” (Acts 3:26).
Now, this did not go over well with the officials. The Jewish authorities came to where this crowd was gathered and arrested Peter and John. After questioning them, the officials ordered them to stop speaking about Jesus and let them go. This is where our Second Reading picks up: “After Peter and John were released…”
Peter and John’s preaching was largely rejected. The enemies of Jesus remained the enemies of Jesus. And while undoubtedly many in the crowd heard the gospel and through that the Spirit created faith in Jesus as Savior in their hearts, it certainly wasn’t everyone. And in this case, it wasn’t the people who might have seemed to have mattered the most: the influential leaders who could have served as a blessing to sharing the good news with the broader populace rather than a hindrance to it.
But what is the response of Peter, John, and the other believers? With one mind they raised their voices to God. And this raising their voices was not in complaint; they were not grousing to God about the treatment the apostles were undergoing. No, actually, just the opposite. They were praising God that despite the opposition, God’s will was still being done.
They quote Psalm 2, which we gave a detailed look at a few weeks ago, when they ask David’s question, “Why do the nations rage?” And the point they make is the same point we discussed then, that this is not a question of what motivates the enemies of God but more of a question of “Why bother? This isn’t going to work.” Consider what happened at the raging of Herod, Pilate, and those in the crowds who were against Jesus. Not only did they not get rid of the message, but their raging was actually used by God to bring about his purpose. They thought they were winning a great victory by nailing Jesus to the cross, but God worked it so that that was the payment for sin, that was the promises coming to fruition, that is our eternal hope.
And so, no rejection and anger on people’s part is going to be able to stifle God. But rejection will come. Jesus faced it, the apostles faced it, and we have and will continue to face it as we share the good news about Jesus. What do we do with that? How do we think about that? If the world rejects us when we share about God’s love because the world just wants people to do their own thing, or hate people who are different than them, or rage against God, is that a failure for us? What should we do?
How did Jesus handle the rejection by the people of Nazareth? As they dragged him to the edge of the cliff to kill him, he passed through the middle of them and went on his way (Luke 14:30). How did the apostles and those with them deal with the rejection by the people in Jerusalem? They continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Rejection does not mean you have failed; rejection doesn’t mean you did something wrong. Rejection of the gospel is to be expected, but the path forward is to continue on the path, share God’s love, and not let Satan use that rejection to discourage or stop the good news from going out into the world. Jesus left Nazareth and the apostles quickly began to widen out beyond Jerusalem and Judea. It may be that in rejection, we change our audience. But we continue to share this Word with the world. And we know that, in the end, faith in this message is God’s work, not ours. And he has promised that his Word will not return empty (Isaiah 55:10-11).
In all of this, we have something about God revealed to us, a clearer sense of who God is, an epiphany: He is not a God who forces love and obedience. While he is truly the God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them, he does not make us robots who cannot help but listen to and obey him. Instead, he does all things for us; he forgives every sin and invites us to love and thank him in response to this glorious, eternal gift.
And in rejection, he doesn’t destroy those who reject. He didn’t call down fire and destroy the people of Nazareth who rejected him; he just left. He didn’t wipe out those who arrested Peter and John; he let them just move on. It’s not that he doesn’t care, in fact, it’s precisely because he does care. Would those people in Nazareth have other opportunities to hear the gospel, to reconsider their rejection? I hope so! So, too, for someone who might reject God’s Word at our sharing as individuals or as a congregation, perhaps we are not the people to see the fruit come forth. Perhaps we are just a cog in the machine, and that later, through someone else’s sharing of his Word, God will work faith in that person. There is time to share as long as a person is still here.
So don’t let rejection equal failure in your heart and mind. Instead, commend these things to God who promises to do what he knows is right when he knows the time is right. As for us? Let us continue to speak the word of God with boldness! Amen.
