Entering into the Epic of Jesus

 May 8 2022

Acts 16:6-34

Have you ever thought about what the difference is between your common, run-of-the mill, movie or story and what might be called an epic movie or story?I would hate to sit down and figure out just how many hours I have spent either reading novels or watching shows but what I can say is that there are only a few of all of these that I would call being an epic. I think that the original three Star Wars movies were as epic as it gets. I remember vividly how my brother came home from college all hyped up about this new sci-fi movie and wondering just why he was so excited about it when he didn’t usually get excited about much of anything. So, I went and saw it for myself and I understood that there was something about this movie which was just different and what I didn’t know then was that this movie was an epic movie. The mini-series, Lonesome Dove, is also one that I would call an epic movie. I get choked up watching it every time I revisit it. Now, what got me thinking about epic movies is that recently I was reading about a theologian, Colin Gunton, which no, this was not an epic read, but what he did do was to show how the images we have of what Jesus has done for us upon the cross and through his resurrection relate to the same qualities found in epic movies. Needless to say, I was intrigued. You see, the way that the work that Jesus has done for us upon the cross has been spoken of is through three main ways: victory, justice and sacrifice.When you hear these themes it isn’t hard to understand how these are epic ideals. We love stories about victory, about good triumphing over evil. We enjoy stories where justice prevails, the ones where the bullies get brought down, where the little, and the common are found to be on equal footing with the great. There is something universal about the tug on our hearts where people are called on to give up something of themselves in order to further the greater good. Gunton saw how these ideals which are demonstrated in the Lord of the Rings saga, another great epic, were much like the images of what Jesus has done for us upon the cross. Yet, what becomes evident when we hold up these images of Jesus against the ideals found in many epic stories is that Jesus has redeemed even these. Unlike many epic stories, the victory of Jesus was achieved without violence; the justice of Jesus was found outside of the law; and, the sacrifice of Jesus was done not as a hero but as a humble servant. What we might conclude is that the story of Jesus is more epic than any other epic story.

This epic story of Jesus, though, did not end there upon the cross for, as they say, the saga continues because Jesus is resurrected. Jesus is alive, how’s that for a plot twist, and now, he is directing the continuing epic story in the lives who follow him. You see, Jesus calls each of us to carry our cross so that just as when he carried his cross we say that there is victory, there is justice displayed, there most of all is the perfect sacrifice, so too when we carry our cross these also should be what people see. At least this is what we see in the life of Saul, who was later known as Paul. As we read through the book of Acts it soon becomes clear that what is written here is more than a historical account of the early church. No, here is most definitely an epic story. This is what we find in our scripture for today from the sixteenth chapter of Acts that we read this morning. Luke tells of how when he, Paul and the others were going to the place of prayer, they were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination. She was being used by her owners to rake in the big bucks as she foretold the future for the fearful and the frightened. Now her plight changed drastically when she began to follow Paul around, the spirit within her shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation! I’m sure at first Paul was happy for the free advertising for his traveling revival but its understandable that after several days of being followed by a girl shouting the same thing over and over that it would get pretty annoying. So, Paul said to the spirit within the girl, “I command you to come out.” This is victory! The victory that Jesus won at the cross was a victory over Satan and all evil and Paul knew that he was called to live out that victory. The spirit within the girl knew that it had to be obedient to Christ for he had cast judgment upon Satan at the cross and there Satan had been cast down. So, yes, Jesus is victorious, and as we live out the story he directs, we experience that victory. Yet that was not the only victory in our story because as we come to find out, when the owners of the slave girl find out that the spirit within the girl was gone, they knew that the money was gone as well. So, the owners of this slave girl sought revenge upon Paul and Silas and they grabbed them and dragged them by the scruff of their neck to stand before the authorities. The owners concocted a story about Paul and Silas disturbing the city, stating that they were advocating customs that were unlawful for they as Roman citizens to participate in. The authorities bought their story and decided that, for their crime, Paul and Silas were to be beaten with rods and after that they were to be thrown into the jail. By now, you are probably wondering just where exactly is the victory in all this? Well, the victory is that Paul and Silas were willing to accept the injustice that was being done to them and instead of retaliating or seeking revenge against the owners of the slave girl or the authorities, they instead were willing to suffer for the cause of Christ. Whether it is clear to us or not, this is victory. The victory of the cross is to take upon ourselves the wrongs done to us by others not allowing Satan to have a foothold in our lives. In this way they were able to demonstrate that the power by which they endured this hardship was the very power of the resurrection, the power of his victory over death. As Paul was to write in the fourth chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians, he was always being given over to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his mortal flesh. This is victory. Yet this was not the last image of victory that we have in our story because we are told that night, around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. This is victory. Here in the dark and putrid cell, bound by chains, Paul and Silas did not succumb to the bleakness of their circumstances but instead they remained confident that the Holy Spirit was with them, praying with them, lifting their voices to the throne room of God. As we hear again from the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians, Paul knew that he was afflicted but not crushed; he knew that he was perplexed but he was not driven to despair; yes, he was persecuted, but God had not forsaken him; he had been struck down but he was not destroyed.This is victory, the victory of Christ living in Paul.

So, yes, our epic story most assuredly has an element of victory but it also holds out the hope of justice. Justice is where everyone is held to the same standard of righteousness. This means that justice depends on everyone being equal in the eyes of God. This is why Paul was adamant to teach us in the third chapter of Romans that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is why in the first chapter of the gospel of John that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world because the whole world was held in the power of sin. And this is why in the third chapter of John’s gospel that God gave his only Son, that whoever, this means anyone, believes they will not perish but have eternal life. This is justice beyond the Law because it is a righteousness that is not earned but it is a righteousness that is given, a gift ready for whosoever might receive and believe in what Jesus has done for them. This is why Paul could say in the third chapter of Galatians that now we are all sons and daughters of God by faith for as many of you have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is now neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ. We don’t have to wonder just where Paul might have come up with such a description of equality because in our story from Acts, this is exactly what we see. We first see Lydia, who we must presume is Jewish because she has come to the place of prayer on the Sabbath. The implication is that there are not ten Jewish males otherwise instead of meeting at the riverside they would have gone to the synagogue. Yet, here is Lydia, a women who is a worshipper of God. We are told that God opened her heart so that she was receptive to what God had to say. What may be surprising is that Paul was speaking at all because Jewish men back then just did not strike up conversations with just anybody. But here was Paul, speaking right to the heart of Lydia; this is justice. So, in Lydia we have woman and a Jewish person. Then there was the slave-girl. Where Lydia was a free person under Roman law, this slave girl was not but even so Paul did not look down upon her. Then their was the jailer.He would have been considered a Gentile, a man who was a Roman citizen. The jailer and his family were equal in the eyes of God, just as equal as Lydia the Jewish woman and just as equal as the slave-girl. This is justice. Yet there is more to this element of justice in our story for when Paul and Silas had their prayer meeting interrupted by an earthquake which shook the foundations of the prison they did not even try and escape. How surprised the jailer must have been as he shone the light upon the prison doors and finding them open. In terror, he drew his sword to kill himself because he knew that he had to guard over his prisoners with his very life. And then he heard Paul shouting, that they were all there, there was no reason to harm himself. Here, even though God had made a way to be free, Paul instead placed the life of the jailer above his own. This is justice. Paul obviously did more than the Law called for and he did so because Christ had given his life for Paul. So, this justice given to us by Christ is a justice which goes even beyond equality to see that the one in need is the most important one. It is a righteousness built upon doing to the very least of these. The power of such justice is that it shook the jailer to his core, much like the earthquake had shaken the prison off its foundations. He fell before Paul and Silas and asked them, “What do I have to do to be saved?” Here we must pause for a moment and consider the jailers request. The jailer knew that Paul and Silas had been placed into his custody because of this Jesus whom they believed in. The jailer saw the wounds the rods had inflicted upon the backs of Paul and Silas. Yet, here he is at midnight, in the dim light of his oil lamp wanting to know how he could be like Paul and Silas. Perhaps he, as a jailer, had witnessed the justice of this world and he knew how the law could be bent and twisted so that the result could be hardly known as being justice at all. And then he experienced something very different from Paul and Silas. Their God was powerful. He was a God who could shake the earth and open prison doors but the real power was the power that held Paul and Silas there when freedom would have been so easy to obtain. This was real justice. This was a justice that did not focus upon themselves but instead focused on what was best for the one who needed their help the most. It is a justice which did, oh, so much more than the law allowed. This is what gives this justice such an epic quality.

So, our story so far has shown elements of victory and it has demonstrated a justice which has brought a jailer and his family to believe in Jesus. But there is still more to our epic story as we also must consider the element of sacrifice as well. So, what do we mean by sacrifice? Well, the first thought is that sacrifice is about a gift freely given as in the third chapter of John’s gospel where we read that God so loved that he gave his only Son. The giving of the Son was a sacrifice given out of love by our Heavenly Father. The second thought about sacrifice is worship, the worthiness of another to receive the gift another has for them. The Father was worthy of all that Jesus is so Jesus freely gave himself to do the will of his Heavenly Father. So, knowing this then we have to ask just where do we see this element in our story in the sixteenth chapter of Acts. First, we see this element of sacrifice in the willingness of Paul and his friends to only go where God opened the door. They gave up all of their thoughts about the right places to go, to fulfill their desire to go to Asia because that just seemed like the logical next step, or to go into the territory of Bithnyia because, why not, surely they too needed to hear the gospel. Yet, in both cases God answered their requests with a flat out, “No”. Paul and company had to sacrifice their thoughts, their hopes, to follow the lead of God and they did so because God was worthy of their obedience. This meant that this sacrifice was not some heroic gesture but rather an act of a humble servant who only wanted to know that they had been a good and faithful servant for their master. We see sacrifice in the life of Lydia who upon being baptized, opened her home to Paul and his friends making a place for them to worship and teach in the absence of a synagogue. We see sacrifice as the jailer who once never gave a second thought to the welfare of Paul and Silas is found there after midnight seeing that their wounds were washed and cleansed. The jailer sacrificed his pride and his attitude so that he at last could see the needs of Paul and Silas. He gave them care and attention because he had heard their story of a God who had given his very Son all because he has found the jailer worthy of such a gift. Upon hearing this good news, the jailer knew that if such a gift was given for him then such a gift was given for everyone. This meant that everyone is a treasure to God worth a great price therefore every person was worthy of his service to them. This is sacrifice.

So, throughout this story of Paul that we find in the book of Acts, what we find is elements of victory, justice and sacrifice worthy of any epic tale. The importance of knowing this about the story of Paul and his friends, is that just as people are drawn to epic stories and movies today, people have always been drawn to stories where there is certain victory, where justice prevails, where sacrifice is honored. The difference though is that here in Acts, the people that we hear about not only listen to an epic tale they instead are drawn into the story and become part of the epic drama that Jesus is speaking into being through the Holy Spirit. As Paul found out when he first met Jesus, the plan of God is to draw everything in heaven and on earth into one great unified whole in the life of Jesus Christ. What we find in the book of Acts is Jesus doing exactly this. Jesus, there at the throne of the Father is speaking forth an epic story of redemption, a story brought down to us on earth through the Holy Spirit. This is a story of victory for there on the cross the evil ruler of this world has been judged and he has been cast out. This is a story of justice because the righteous judge has taken upon himself our judgment so that righteousness might be a gift for all who will believe. This is a story of sacrifice for there upon the cross the Father redeemed us not with gold or silver but with the precious blood of Christ all because this is what we are worth to him. You see, this victory, this justice, this sacrifice, of Jesus captures our attention just as epic tales always do. Yet, there is more to this story of Jesus because what we find is that when we are drawn to Jesus through this good story what happens is that we become people called to live out this good story for ourselves. We are, you might say, given a chance at an epic life. We are called to live out the victory of Jesus; Satan is defeated, we must act like it. Jesus is the image of righteousness; he is what justice looks like, loving us out of our need not out of our worthiness. This is the way we must act out of love toward others. Jesus gave his very life because he treasured us. We must act sacrificially toward others, giving what they need because God found them worthy of the greatest gift. This is the epic life Jesus calls us to act out in our everyday ordinary lives. This is a life so great that it is worth even suffering on account of because it is the very life of Christ living in us. Amen.