Dunbar UCC

May 16, 2010

Acts 1:3-11

Luke 24:45-51

Power

I.        We’re at end of the season of Easter.  This is the seventh, and last, Sunday of Easter.  During the past 40 days we’ve read about the appearances of Jesus after he was resurrected.  He appeared to the disciples and spoke about the Kingdom of God, and he told the disciples to proclaim the gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins.

          But not yet.   He said:  “You must wait in Jerusalem until you receive “the power from on high.”  Jesus said only after the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon us can we be his witnesses.

II.       There are two kinds of power: God’s power and our own will power.  We can see God’s power at work in Jesus, where most of what he did was about healing:  blindness, paralysis, leprosy, demon possession, greed, epilepsy -- even death.

          He taught about the kingdom of God, showing by his example that with the “power from on high,” it was possible to do “on earth as it is in heaven.”  

III.      Human power is fickle, it goes both ways, it can be used for healing, as when a doctor mends a broken limb, or it can kill a whole city with a bomb.  Human power  can destroy this planet.  By God’s power, the oceans were created, and by human power, they are polluted.

IV.     God’s will and human will aren’t the same.  But they can be -- that’s the trick -- the magic -- of our religion.  That God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven -- that our fickle, inconsistent, good sometimes evil sometimes minds can become the mind of Christ is what we live and pray for.  

          Wherever we are and whatever we are doing God can stop us, as he did the Apostle Paul, and fill us with his power which has only one purpose -- to love.  

V.      We try to be good, but don’t always succeed.  People are trying now in Arizona to do the right thing. They say immigration is the problem -- immigrants coming here, using our resources, taking our jobs, bringing crime, taking this beautiful land away from us.  

          But according to the BIble, our problem isn’t immigration -- our problem is fear and the mean spirit in our hearts that no law can fix.  No law can make us care about another person.  No law can make us compassionate.  Congress can’t legislate kindness.

          So we wait for the power that Jesus promised -- the power from on high that brings the dead back to life, and breathes love into our frozen souls.