Be My Witnesses…

#ThinkAheadThursday

Now that Easter Sunday has come and gone, we now look at post-resurrection Scripture. The book of Acts is the only book of the Bible that provides us with a narrative account of the life and work of Jesus’s disciples after his resurrection. Sunday’s reading is Acts 1:1-14, and I’ll be focusing on verse 8, which are the final words Jesus left his disciples with before his ascension:

“But 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.”

You will be my witnesses here and everywhere.

What does is mean to be Jesus’s witness? This is a question we should ask ourselves – this task did not stay with the original disciples but apply to disciples of all generations.

In this context, to understand the term “witness,” we need to consider a combination of two ways to define the word.

First, to be a witness is to be one who sees or observes an event take place. In this case, the disciples were witnesses to Jesus as he taught and performed miracles. They were witnesses to his death and resurrection. In Acts 1, they were witnesses to his ascension. The definition of “witness” as someone who has seen what took place is important to consider. This definition is more about the past…the disciples saw these things happen.

But, that’s not enough. Stopping here would not help us understand Acts 1:8. The disciples saw something – how does that apply to what Jesus is telling them to do in the future in Jerusalem, Samaria, and the ends of the earth?

That brings us to the second part of what it means to be a witness. Like today, in the ancient world, witnesses were used in court. In this context, a witness is one who saw something happen (past tense) and then testifies to what they saw (present and future).

So for the disciples to be Christ’s witnesses throughout the world, they need both elements: they need to see what happened and then testify to it.

As Christians in 2020, we did not see Jesus. We did not see his miracles, hear his teachings, or experience his death and resurrection firsthand like the disciples in Acts 1.

So what does this look like for us?

How do we “see” Jesus?

And how do we testify to what we’ve “seen”?

Think and pray through that to prepare for hearing the Word this Sunday.