Monday, April 16, 2012

Reflection: What Have We Seen and Heard? (April 15, 2012)

The Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31


Observing young children at play will quickly reveal what they have heard and seen. Much of what they express is actually their interpretation and playing back of the things that have been said to them or the actions that they have observed in others, especially their parents and caregivers. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes saddening, the words and actions of young children are always mirrors reflecting what they have heard and seen.

Those who are the children of God have heard and seen His mercy and grace in the things experienced by faith. In the first generation of believers, some of those children had actually heard and seen Jesus in His earthly ministry. One of them, the Apostle John, was inspired to write to the Church to clearly share the Gospel and disprove the false teachings about Jesus that people had introduced. John could write about Jesus and His work as that "which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes." But he also told those to whom he had proclaimed "what we have seen and heard" that they had the same fellowship with Jesus through His Word and Spirit. John reminded them of what they had seen and heard by faith and then called them to live their lives as reflections of it. A good example of what he was talking about is found in the in Acts 4:32-34 when all the believers were "one in heart and mind" and shared their possessions so that "there were no needy persons among them." They responded to hearing and seeing the grace of God by freely making use of their material possessions to bring God's love to others. It's little wonder that when people saw their actions they held the Christians in high regard.

We are the current generation of those who have heard and seen the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Like many generations before ours, we have not touched Him with our hands or heard Him with our eyes, but we are eyewitnesses of Him and the work He has done in us. We are among those "who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). What do the people of the world see in us as we live our lives in response to God's goodness? What do they conclude about what we have heard and seen by observing us? What are we playing back and why? Our actions, words, hopes, and priorities — our very lives —will certainly reflect what we have heard and seen in the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus.

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