And We Shall Be Changed

Scripture: Acts 2

My father was a private man who didn't have friends outside of the workplace. We rarely visited his office and therefore knew very few of his co-workers. So it wasn't until he passed away, and dozens of people who had worked with him over the years came to his funeral, that we had any sense of how much he had meant to so many.

At one point during the visitation I found myself surrounded by three of them. The first, a kindly older gentleman shook my hand warmly and said "Your father was a great guy. As you know, he was interested in antique grandfather clocks, as I am, so we had a lot to talk about." Then a middle-aged man in the group nodded and said "Yeah, he always found time to compare notes with me about furniture making. He sure was passionate about it." A young woman wiped a tear from her eye and said "He taught me how important it was to talk about my feelings. I think he helped save my marriage."

This was all very nice except for one complication. In my entire life, I had never heard my father express any interest in grandfather clocks. I had never seen him build a stick of furniture. And I certainly had never known him to talk about his feelings. My father was a characteristically stoic first-generation German American who used the word "feeling" only in a very different context, as in "I'm feeling ... like having potato pancakes with my knockwurst tonight."

At the time, I wondered if I had roamed into the wrong visitation room or if my father had cultivated a secret second identity. But over time I came to understand what was going on. I came to realize that my father, like all of us, had two lives.

One was his life in time and space. This life could be captured in data: when he was born, where he had lived, what he had done for a living, his age when he died, and so on.

The other was his life in the hearts and minds of those who had known him. This life defied data. This life reflected a higher truth. This life was not about fact, but about effect: the effect that my father had on those who knew him. This was the life that mattered more. This was the life that would endure in human memory when the data was long forgotten.

A few months ago, I was filling out a government form that asked for my father's birth date. I hit a complete blank. Stunned, I looked up at the clerk and said "I've forgotten my father's birthday!" The clerk, obviously trying to make me feel better, screamed back "You've forgotten your father's birthday?!" I thought for a second and then said, "Well, yes, but I can tell you every detail about our first fishing trip together."

The great theologian H. Richard Niebuhr observed that Jesus had these two lives as well. One was his life in time and space. This life can be captured in data: when he was born, where he lived, how he died, and so on. Of course, we have more consistent and confirmable information about some data than about others, but we certainly know a good deal about the Jesus of history.

Still, Niehbuhr pointed out, most of what we find in the New Testament is about Jesus's other life, his life as expressed through the effect he had on others. Throughout the New Testament, Niebuhr writes, "we find that what is present is not a Jesus of history but a Christ of faith, not Jesus incarnate, but the risen Lord."

This offers one explanation for why we find differences between the various gospel depictions of what Jesus did and said. Jesus obviously had differing effects on those who knew him, and in turn on those who knew those who knew him. Or, as the biblical scholar Raymond Brown puts it, the gospels are like a diamond that reflects the same light in different ways. The presence of differences is therefore unremarkable; indeed, properly understood, it is downright consoling.

Well, all of these things are at work when the second chapter of the book of Acts brings us into the room with the apostles. These are individuals who had walked beside Jesus. He had been a real and physical presence in their lives. But, more importantly, Jesus remained present in their lives. So when we come into the room we do not find the apostles quibbling over data or trying to reconstruct a sequence of historical events. We find them praying. We find them opening their hearts to the Lord for guidance. And then we find them drenched, infused, filled with the Holy Spirit.

This experience does not just affect them. It fundamentally transforms them. Bible commentator William Barclay offers this explanation:

"Fear, despair, flight--these were the things which filled the horizon of the disciples after the event of Calvary. This was their condition at the Passover time. Seven weeks later Pentecost came and we see these same men filled with a blazing hope and confidence, with a courage that defied the Sanhedrin and the mob alike. Every effect must have an adequate cause. And the only possible explanation of the astonishing change is that the disciples were firmly convinced that Jesus was alive."

They were firmly convinced that Jesus was alive because of the effect he continued to have upon them. But this was an effect unlike any other. This was not just a fond memory. This was an effect that spoke directly to their hearts and that said "I am still with you. I am still in your life. I am still walking beside you, arm in arm. I am still walking before you, guiding you. I am still walking behind you, nudging you along. I will be with you to the very end of time. And I will never leave you."

Jesus was alive with them. Jesus is alive with us. Showering us with grace, an amazing grace, a marvelous grace, a grace that is "greater than all our sins."

The experience of Christ's living presence transformed the apostles. And it can transform us. That is, indeed, the point of the Pentecost story--that God calls us to open our hearts to the work of the Holy Spirit so that we might be changed in ways we cannot even imagine. Of course, we cannot expect everything to change right along with us. But the book of Acts offers no illusions here. In the chapters that follow it goes on to tell us about the struggles the apostles faced as they went forward--changed--into an unchanged world.

The Reverend Peter Gomes suggests that this is not just the point of the Pentecost story; this is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian. He writes:

"I will give you my definition of what a Christian is. To be a Christian is to be a changed man or a changed woman in an unchanged world. Anyone can be a Christian in an Christian world, but, in case you haven't noticed it, this is not a Christian world. This is a pagan world, a fallen world, a secular world, a sordid world, a shabby world, and it happens to be the only world that you and I have. That's it. To be a Christian in it is to be changed in the middle of that which is unchanged."

Through the grace of the living Christ, we can be changed. Through our experience of the presence of the living Christ, we are changed.

I will confess to you that I have an unshakeable prejudice on one particular issue. Fortunately, it is a musical issue and my opinions on such matters mean nothing to anyone, so the possibility of my giving offense is remote. Here it is: in my view, the single most beautiful piece of music ever written is Handel's Messiah. I say that with all due respect to those who might claim the title for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or Bach's cello suites or Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain." So, over the years I have seen dozens of performances of the Messiah and I have loved all of them. But one performance has a special place in my heart, and in my faith.

As you may know, performances of the Messiah typically feature a choral group, an orchestra, and four soloists. On this occasion, one of the male soloists, the bass, was a movie-star-handsome young man. As he moved across the stage, though, it became evident that he was using two large metal crutches to help him walk and that his legs were supported by bulky, heavy braces. I had no way of knowing for sure, but it appeared to me that this related to a condition he'd had for a very long time, perhaps his whole life. Of course, after a while I ceased to notice it. After all, it was hard to pay attention to anything other than his spectacular voice.

But then, toward the very end of the performance, he came forward to sing his last solo piece. It was the part of the Messiah that takes its text from First Corinthians fifteen. You know the words: "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Over and over again he sang those words, "and we shall be changed, and we shall be changed."

As he sang those words he leaned his head back, and raised his eyes, and slightly extended his arms. And he sang it again and again, "and we shall be changed, and we shall be changed," and as I watched him I went right along with him. Somehow I knew what he was thinking. Somehow I knew that he was imagining a time when those crutches and braces would be cast aside, a time when all the limitations of this life would be left behind, a time when he would be raised incorruptible, a time when he would stand before Christ, a time when he would be changed.

And I went right along with him because he was singing about all of us. All of us are shackled by our limitations. All of us have our crutches and our braces. All of us are struggling along in our walk through life, bound and burdened and hoping for a day when we will be free from sin and sickness and sadness. All of us dream of a time when change will come.

But then I realized that something else was going on as well. I realized that by leaning back his head, lifting his eyes toward God, reaching out his arms, and opening himself to the movement of the Holy Spirit he was changed. Right there, right then. Just as a roomful of apostles was changed two-thousand years ago. Just as we will be changed if we will only do the same.

You know how the human ego works. Whenever something special happens we're sure it must be happening only to us. So you can imagine my surprise when I looked around the auditorium to see if anyone else was having the same experience and discovered that I was surrounded by people who were weeping--weeping out of the joy that comes when we see that we can be changed, that we shall be changed, that we are changed.

Ah, let us praise the one who changes us that it is so.

Amen.