You will be my witnesses... to the ends of the earth!

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

This verse sets the program for the Christian life; we who are followers of the Risen Christ are also called to be his witnesses wherever we go.

What’s that? You say that this commission was just for the apostles? If that is so, the witnessing would have come to an end centuries ago. Do you think that Peter and John and James ever heard of Barnehurst? Oh, but then perhaps it’s the job of the bishops, the successors of the apostles to be witnesses? Or perhaps the role of witness is meant for all of the ordained clergy?

Think again, the commission is for all us. “You will be my witnesses.” The commission is for all us who are called to take part in the royal priesthood of all believers. Just as Jesus said, “Follow me,” he also said, “Be my witnesses.” So we had better be about doing just that!

But how are we, living in the 21st century, in a place that the apostles never even heard of, to be witnesses to something that happened 2,000 years ago, in a place most of us have never seen? Sure, we’ve read the Bible; we know the story, but does that make us witnesses? Can we give evidence? We weren’t even there!

Let’s look more closely at what Jesus says, “you will be my witnesses.” Our testimony is about him, not just about what happened long ago and far away. We are to give evidence about what we ourselves have heard, seen, experienced. We can’t be witnesses unless we have met the Risen Christ—unless our lives have been transformed by him.

This is something that we, as Christians, probably do a lot more often than we know. St. Francis of Assisi said it well: “Proclaim the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” How many persons in your own life have been witnesses, silent or otherwise, to you?

Probably we don’t think of ourselves in that way. Nevertheless, if the Lord Jesus calls us to be witnesses, we’d better not think of this as something optional. But what we do? How can we get started? It would appear that two things are necessary.

First of all, of course, we can do nothing through our own power. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,” Jesus said. As we await the glorious feast of Pentecost next Sunday, let us pray earnestly for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all of us, both corporately and individually.

The second thing that we must do is spoken of in Acts: “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer,” The communal prayer and harmony reflected in the stories from the Acts of the Apostles should serve as a model for our own church community. Any disunity in the Body of Christ will always be an obstacle to the effectiveness of the witness we bear. As the Lord Jesus prayed on the night before he died that we might all be one, so we must pray and act as one.

In the Baptismal Service say, “God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness
and has given us a place with the saints in light. You have received the light of Christ;
walk in this light all the days of your life. Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.” We must be wholehearted in this commitment, in order to be his witnesses.

Let us pray: May the love of the Lord Jesus draw us to himself; may the power of the Lord Jesus strengthen us is his service; may the joy of the Lord Jesus fill our souls, and may we be his witnesses wherever we may be. Amen.