“Never Abandoned, Eternally Exalted”

Scripture: Acts 2:22-36

Last week, we began to look at Peter’s Pentecostal sermon. The scripture ended with his reminding the people of Joel’s prophesy of many miracles, that they would come when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all of the servants of the Lord. Peter told them that the blessing that they had just experienced, the prophesy that was offered in their own languages, was one of those miracles that the prophet had mentioned.
Some people today compare this to the abilities of magicians. From Houdini to Criss Angel, the magicians have had a following that is, in some instances, nearly fanatical. They go to see them disappear from one place and shortly reappear in another. They go to see the amazing, the things that they can’t explain, the things that are borderline to the miraculous.

But Philip Pare, an Anglican priest and author wrote:
Magic is usually a labor-saving device which spares the magician or his client time and trouble, and quite often magic is irrational. Miracles, on the other hand, tend to mean not less but more work for its beneficiaries.
-- Philip Pare,
God Made the Devil, cited in The Harper Religious & Inspirational Quotation Companion (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 288.

The miracles that were witnessed on that Pentecost day would definitely create new work, if not more, for the disciples, and as more and more people came to Jesus Christ, they, too, would be put to the new work. And Peter’s work that day was just beginning.

Read Acts 2:22-24

Magic amazes and entertains through the skills of humans, but miracles bring about a change that is God inspired. The miracles that had surrounded Jesus’ ministry, and that includes the things that his followers had done in his name, changed lives. People were physically healed from many different ailments; they were freed from demonic possession; they heard teaching that had never been heard before, but which would give them an entirely new outlook on life; they had discovered new life and rebirth and salvation in a way that had never before been offered or imagined.
But Jesus himself was never about the miracles – he was about the result of the miracles. He was about the changed lives, the new birth that replaced the old death, the majestic presence of God Incarnate in human lives. He would be about the love that goes beyond all reason.

Biblical scholar and professor J. Clinton McCann writes
Psalm 8 had the distinction of being the first biblical text to reach the moon, when the Apollo 11 mission left a silicon disc containing messages from 73 nations, including the Vatican, which contributed the text of this psalm. Psalm 8 was clearly an appropriate choice for this cosmic journey, for it is both an eloquent proclamation of the cosmic sovereignty of God and a remarkable affirmation of the exalted status and vocation of the human creature.
-J. Clinton McCann, The Book of Psalms (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 710-711.

Let me read a few of those verses again:
Psalm 8:3-5
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

The miracle isn’t that God could do all of that, but rather that he did do it for you and me! The miracle is that God loved his “created” this much! I once heard that love isn’t about how much you receive – it’s about how much you are willing to give up so that it might exist. How much does God love us? He should have turned his back on the whole lot of us, but instead, he came to earth to be the sacrificial offering for our salvation!

Read Acts 2:25-33

David knew this loving gift when he penned this Psalm 16, and Peter knew this when he spoke of it on that Pentecostal morning. You might think that Almighty God would have more important things to do in his creation than look out for the likes of us, but here it is – “he is at my right hand”, and he is with all of the people of earth, whether saint or sinner or somewhere in between.
Sometimes we like to think that the Lord is only with those who have given their life to him, but the truth is that he is with all – giving each us, at various times and in various ways, those little signs and wonders and miracles, that we might begin to consider just where those things come from, and why they come to us. David writes of a miracle – a revelation – that he received, that he will “live in hope and that he will not be abandoned to the grave”. And yet it seems strange that Peter only focuses on Jesus resurrection, and not on his promise that all who believe will be with him in eternity. But that’s the true miracle, isn’t it? Jesus is God, and resurrection to eternal life isn’t so astounding for him. But mortals? How can we be mortal and yet live an endless life with the Lord? Only as a gift to those who would follow the One who can change the mortal into the immortal! Now there’s a life changing miracle for you!
The miracle is that it’s a gift from God! Even as Jesus is exalted to the right hand of God, he will carry with him those who will follow.

Read Acts 2:34-36

Ronald Thomas, a 20th century Welsh poet, wrote:
Life is not hurrying on to a receding future,
nor hankering after an imagined past.
It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush,
to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once,
but is the eternity that awaits you.
--R. S. Thomas, Later Poems 1972-1982 (London: Macmillan, 1983), 81.

Our earthly death will get to hold us for a while, but even as it does, eternity will wait. Peter points out that David didn’t ascend right away, and, in fact, is still waiting, just as we are waiting. As Thomas wrote, this life isn’t about hurrying on to death, the “receding future” that he wrote about, but rather about our “turning aside” from this earthly path, and taking the new one that leads to eternity. Moses had to go out of his way to approach the bush, but it was life changing for him and for millions. David turned aside from the flocks that he tended, and the nation of Israel would be positioned for the miracle of all miracles. Simon left his fishing career to follow an itinerant rabbi that he had never met before and knew nothing about, and in doing so, he would become Peter who would preach like no one ever had before him. Saul thought he was on his way to Damascus to persecute a few more of God’s people, but the journey gave him a brand new name and a whole new outlook on the law and what really brings righteousness into our lives!
And the list of those who would make the decision to “turn aside” would go on to include Augustine, and Luther, and Wesley, and billions more people like each of us.

Jesus has become Lord and Christ – the authority and master of our lives, and the Anointed One of God, the Blessed One of Heaven. He promises that he will never abandon us to death, and that in all things he will be with us in this life and beyond. He promises that in his presence, we will have unimaginable hope and joy, regardless of the circumstances that this life brings. And on “that day”, we will be raised up to glory and will be exalted with him in eternity!
And this Lord and Savior and Messiah asks so very little of his subjects - only that they turn away from the path that they are currently on and follow the new one that he has created.

Psalm 8:3-5 once again:
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

Ever mindful of our lives, and ready in an instant to raise us into glory. Never abandoned, always exalted, constantly blessed, eternally joyful.
And all of this for those who will turn aside from destruction, and into the new way of Jesus Christ. Sounds like a pretty good deal! Have you claimed it?