Witness and Reign of God

Reflection-27-1-2008.
Acts 5:33-42.

The reign of God is not something ready-made. It is not like a ready made suit that needs only small alterations here and there to suit the buyer. The reign of God is something that happens. When the hungry are satisfied, when those who weep laugh, when the oppressed find justice and freedom, and when those who despair of life regain hope, the reign of God becomes real. If the reign of God is something that happens, it has to be sighted and identified. In other words, the reign of God needs eyewitnesses, persons who sight it and identify it, persons who are able to distinguish it from all other happenings.

Here we are using the word “witness” in the sense of someone who witness something, that is, an eyewitness. But it requires more than eyewitnesses. The reign of God demands more than spectators. It invites participation and involvement. The bearer of witness is not just an objective observer, a disinterested reporter, or a narrator who has no stake in what has happened. To be willing to bear witness like bearing or shouldering a burden, you have to be involved in the event in one way of another.

Apostles were the people who willingly took the burden of the Kingdom of God. Today I would like to highlights two thoughts from the Acts 5:33-42.

Firstly,
Bearer of witness is a political and religious engagement. The reign of God is freedom. To bear witness to God’s reign is to bear witness to freedom. To say it is to say freedom. To believe in it is to believe in freedom. To practice it is to practice freedom. Freedom of course is not an abstract concept; it is closely related to a particular meaning of the space in which we live. What Jesus did was to help people reclaim their space and regain their freedom. A space of freedom is created when he eats and drinks with the social and religious outcasts. Gospel always gives freedom to oppressed and space to the outcasts. But it disturbs the existing political and religious structures.

Secondly,
Engagement with God’s Kingdom leads towards Cross. The reign of God poses a crisis to individual persons and a challenge to human community. It compels us to face the forces of evil at work in the inmost part of our psyches and in the depths of human community. In Jesus’ trial before the Jewish religious authorities as a religious offender and at the court of the Roman colonial regime as a political criminal, Jesus as the reign of God and the powers of this world as the reign of darkness are joined in battle for a decisive showdown before the eyes of the world. The trial of Jesus, as all trials that have to do with witnessing to God’s reign, begins in the primordial time of creation when God and the reign of darkness confront each other for domination.

When Apostles witnessed Christ as the life giving Lord, the forces of darkness (oppressive religious structures and colonial rulers of that time) enraged and wanted to kill them. But Apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for Christ. And they were courage enough to preach the Freedom of Christ. As a theological community God called us to bear witness to God’s reign today. Do we have the great vision to fight against the forces of darkness.

Let me conclude with a story , one day a man killed an ant while he walks. All ants in that city gathered in a place and passed a resolution to make that man blind and entrusted their leader to implement their decision. Leader went .Even after a long time no response. All ants one by one went. All failed in their goal. Their journey ends near to his sweet eating mouth. Their protest failed when they decided to go after the sweet. As a church we should have the strength to beyond the sweets offered by the forces of darkness.

Jesus said, “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.Amen.
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