Rejoice!?
Acts 5:33-42
The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
-Acts 5:41-42
When was the last time you rejoiced? I bet together we can come up with a pretty good list. Maybe it was the birth of your first (or most recent) grandchild. What a cause for joy! Maybe it was when a relative was baptized or a friend made a profession of faith at church. Again, great cause for joy. Or maybe it was more mundane—something going very well for you at work, or getting a better-than-expected grade on a test at school. It might have been the Dodgers winning the World Series. All of these warrant celebration. Well, maybe not the Dodgers winning, but you get the picture.
What do these things have in common? Each has to do with success, with things turning out the way we had hoped, or even better. It is a bit jarring, then, to read of the apostles rejoicing because they suffered disgrace for the name of Jesus. They went through quite the ordeal. They were jailed for preaching Christ in Jerusalem, brought before the Sanhedrin (the Jewish religious and political rulers), threatened with death, and flogged. This sort of result does not sound like success to our 21st century American ears, but it did elicit joy in the apostles.
I must confess that I find it hard to hope for such an opportunity to suffer, let alone to rejoice at something like that. I doubt that I’m alone in our congregation in that regard. Does that make us bad Christians?
Maybe we should remember that Peter and the apostles did not seek out suffering or disgrace. They sought to serve the Lord as faithfully as they could. They preached and performed signs and wonders. When they were jailed, an angel of the Lord broke them out and sent them to preach again. Suffering found them. When threatened again, Peter replied that they “must obey God rather than human beings!”
So maybe one way to look at it is that we can take joy in the opportunity to faithfully serve the Lord. We do not have to seek out suffering and disgrace. If it does find us—and we should always be prepared for it—we can take solace in joining the apostles in sharing in Jesus’ suffering. But our goal should be faithful service. Let us rejoice, and never stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah!
~Pastor Matt