Acts 4:13-21; Mark 16:9-15
It seems that it should be easy to accept something that we have actually experienced for ourselves. Yet all too often we're so wedded to our preconceived ideas of what should or should not be that we choose to not hear and not believe even that which we have heard and seen.
The disciples received the news of Jesus' resurrection not from strangers, but from Mary Magdalene and the two other disciples who had met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. People they knew, people they had celebrated and grieved with, people whose witness they should have trusted. Yet they chose to continue in their grief and not believe.
The man they knew to have been crippled from birth stood with Peter and John before the Sanhedrin - living proof of the power of the resurrected Christ. But to accept that proof would have meant not only having to accept that some of their beliefs were wrong, but also that Peter and John - those "uneducated, ordinary men" - spoke with an authority greater than that of the Sanhedrin. So they chose to continue in their unbelief.
To see and hear is not enough. Without a willingness to be open to where God is trying to lead us we remain deaf and blind despite the evidence before us.
Yet those who are willing to unharden their hearts; willing to let go of their preconceived ideas; willing to let the Spirit lead them, can find themselves transformed.
The crippled man didn't ask to be cured. At most he was hoping that Peter and John might give him a coin or two. He didn't know that being cured was an option. But he was open to the Spirit and received not what he asked for, but what he needed.
The world didn't ask for the Good News. It didn't know that it was an option. But those who were open to it received it anyway.
The disciples were uneducated, ordinary men. Yet it was these ordinary men that Jesus sent out to proclaim the Good News to the whole world. And those who had not seen and heard for themselves came to know and believe. Through the power of the Spirit these ordinary men were able to accomplish the extraordinary.
Are you ready to be extraordinary?
The disciples received the news of Jesus' resurrection not from strangers, but from Mary Magdalene and the two other disciples who had met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. People they knew, people they had celebrated and grieved with, people whose witness they should have trusted. Yet they chose to continue in their grief and not believe.
The man they knew to have been crippled from birth stood with Peter and John before the Sanhedrin - living proof of the power of the resurrected Christ. But to accept that proof would have meant not only having to accept that some of their beliefs were wrong, but also that Peter and John - those "uneducated, ordinary men" - spoke with an authority greater than that of the Sanhedrin. So they chose to continue in their unbelief.
To see and hear is not enough. Without a willingness to be open to where God is trying to lead us we remain deaf and blind despite the evidence before us.
Yet those who are willing to unharden their hearts; willing to let go of their preconceived ideas; willing to let the Spirit lead them, can find themselves transformed.
The crippled man didn't ask to be cured. At most he was hoping that Peter and John might give him a coin or two. He didn't know that being cured was an option. But he was open to the Spirit and received not what he asked for, but what he needed.
The world didn't ask for the Good News. It didn't know that it was an option. But those who were open to it received it anyway.
The disciples were uneducated, ordinary men. Yet it was these ordinary men that Jesus sent out to proclaim the Good News to the whole world. And those who had not seen and heard for themselves came to know and believe. Through the power of the Spirit these ordinary men were able to accomplish the extraordinary.
Are you ready to be extraordinary?
Natalie Borisovets
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