30.04.06 Colin Author of Life Acts 13: 12-19
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I
was in the garden this week, when we’ve had some glorious weather
and I hope that you, like me, were awestruck by the beauty of the
created world - the cool sunny sky; the crisp air; creation coming
back into life after winter. I hope that you’ve had those moments
of wonder at the magnificence of creation during this past week.
Or perhaps you’ve had a moment of wonder at seeing the tip of a plant coming through the ground again - the Creator of this and every plant in our world having given it the power to spring back into life, drawn up by the new light and the heat of spring.
Perhaps you have looked at the trees and seen the buds bursting forth with new growth, bringing beauty and life into our world, marvelling at how those trees breathe oxygen back into the atmosphere enabling human life to be sustained.
Perhaps your moment of wonder has been at seeing a child born, or just the words of a child which have deeply moved you; or perhaps some kindness shown to you by another person.
I hope you have some great moments of wonder this week at the fantastically beautiful, awe-inspiring and magnificent things which happen both in nature and with people, in this world created by God. Yet, none of our human wisdom and skill can produce life even in the smallest object in nature. I can nurture the plants in my garden, but I cannot give them life. I can look after them and protect them as far as I am able, but I cannot prevent them from dying when their time has come. For it is only through the life which God Himself has imparted, that plant or animal or human being can live. It is God who brings the bud to bloom and the flower to fruit. It is by His power that the seed develops into a full grown beautiful plant. It is by his power we as human beings gain new life in birth. The wonder of life is only possible because the Author and creator of life, as Peter4 describes God in Acts chapter 3, has made it possible.
It had been a moment of wonder for the people listening to Peter in this great story from the very birth of the church. Peter had preached to the great crowd of ‘devout men from every nation’. He had called on them to repent and be baptized, and thousands did so and were baptized. Wonders and signs were done through the Apostles. Then in early verses of Acts 3, we’re told that Peter and John met the man lame from birth, and Peter in the name of Jesus raises the man up and he walks. The people who saw this were ‘filled with wonder and amazement’.
It’s at this moment of wonder and amazement, that Peter seizes the opportunity to point to the power of God as the ‘Author of life’. ‘Why do you stare at us’ (he says) ‘as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?’
He reminds them of the historic and unending nature of God – ‘The God of Abraham, The God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors’
He re-tells the terrible events which led to the rejection of Jesus by the people of his time and to his crucifixion and death.
He declares that the lame man was healed by faith in the name of the Author of life, rather than by the power of the Apostles
And finally he gently and lovingly calls on them to repent and to come back into a relationship with the Author of life whom they rejected.
Peter reminds them that ONLY the Author of life can give new life. To the lame man the Author of life gave new physical life. To the crowd listening to the voice of Peter, the Author of life offers new spiritual life.
This great title for Jesus that Peter uses - the Author of life - along with Peter’s statement about the historic and unchanging nature of God through the centuries - is intended to convey the stature and nature of God.
The dictionary definition of the word "author" denotes one who writes, constructs, or originates something. Authors use words to communicate their characters and stories, and this fits well with the great picture at the start of John’s Gospel of Jesus as the Word: John Chapter 1 declares "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made". Jesus is pictured in John’s Gospel as the author, the originator and the creator of all life. Indeed, the use of the word Author to describe Jesus is an appropriate, and accurate, translation of the original Greek word of the New Testament meaning "someone who originates or causes or initiates something."
The Author of a story has the wonderful creative power to shape the characters and the context; to write the story line and create the experiences the characters go through; to create what is perhaps most important in all novels – how the story ends. The author of a story has absolute power over the characters – every thought, every action, every moment of their lives, and even the timing of their deaths.
The purpose of the Author in telling a story is not clear until the story is finished. Indeed a story or novel is best when they have not just a good start but also a good finish. Some things in life seem to have a beginning, but no ending. Some things in life start, but they end up, sadly, in destruction. Real beauty and accomplishment come not just from creativity, not just from starting things, but from the hard work and commitment it takes to get things finished.
Later in the New Testament, in Hebrews 12:2, Jesus is called "the author and finisher of our faith". Jesus is the Author of life who finishes his work. His work is in our faith, helping us by his Holy Spirit, to endure through many trials until finally glory comes and we are with the Author of Life for ever.
So the picture of Jesus, in the context of physically healing the lame man, is as the Author of life who created this man, continuing and finishing his work in the man to make him more perfect. Jesus is not only the creator of this man’s life, but the Author who is working at His original creation to bring him to perfection (in Heb. 12:2, the word for “finisher” also means one who perfects).
Every day Jesus is helping our story to be finished in each of us as individuals:
Through our worship and learning, building and re-building our relationship with the Author of Life;
In our daily work at home, in employment or in the service we give to others
In our struggling to understand what we can do to be God’s servants here on earth
In committing ourselves to work for a better world, more in keeping with the perfection of the world that the Author of life created.
Often these things seem hum-drum and routine, but in our struggle to be faithful, and in our disciplining ourselves to follow the path of Christ, Jesus works in us to bring about the perfection which he seeks in us, that will not be finally completed until our human life is ended. In each of us Jesus is working to bring about that new life, that perfection that will fit us to be beside him in heaven.
For some, the struggle of God to bring about that perfect creation in our lives is long. For others, it is short, for the Author and creator of life chooses the timing of our birth, and the influences the moment of our passing.
For some of us the process of God perfecting his creation means physical change; for others a new mental life; for all of us a new spiritual life. The new and finished life, that is beautiful and perfect, requires the touch of the Author of life in each of us.
The writer to the Hebrews states (Hebrews 12:1-2 RSV) “seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God."
Let us today pray for ourselves, and for God’s world, that he might continue His work in us, shaping us into his perfect creation.