Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon May 18, 2008
If you go to Macy’s website, you can find a Rwanda Shop where you can buy baskets called Path to Peace Baskets; these are weaved by Rwandan people. In 1994, after just 100 days of the atrocious genocide, close to 1 million Rwandan citizens were murdered; mostly Tutsis were killed by Hutus. This horrifying genocide left this relatively small nation in Africa with nearly 70% women. To make ends meet, both women of Tutsis and Hutus turned to their tradition of weaving and worked together. Since 2005, Macy’s been selling Path Peace Baskets.[1]
Just few days ago, Christiane Amanpour, a CNN correspondent featured an article about a Rwandan woman named Iphigenia Mukantabana, a master weaver; she sits in front of her house and weaves beautiful baskets with her friend Epiphania Mukanyndwi. She had a very painful story to tell.[2]
In 1994, Mukantabana’s husband and five of her children were all hacked and clubbed to death by Hutu militias. Among the killers was Jean-Bosco Bizimana; he is the husband of Epiphania with whom Mukantabana weaves baskets now.
How could Mukantabana now share her future and her family meals with Bizimana, the killer of her family, and the killer’s wife, Epiphania?
Bizimana, the killer spent seven years in jail. When he was released, he went before a tribal gathering and was given an opportunity to ask for forgiveness from the victims’ families. Bizimana told the reporter, “It hurts my heart to see that I did something wrong to friends of my family, to people whom we even shared meals with… I am still asking for forgiveness from the people I hurt.”
Mukantabana found that it was difficult to forgive. For four years after her family’s murders, she did not speak to the killer Bizimana or his wife Epiphania. Yet, now, she weaves baskets next to the killer’s wife and has forgiven the killer. Mukantabana told the reporter, “I am a Christian, and I pray a lot.” As a master weaver, she said, “We know how to wave baskets… It helped unite Rwandans in this area because they accepted me as the master weaver, and I could not say, ‘I am not taking your basket’ or ‘I am not helping you because you did something bad to me.”[3]
Here is a picture of her with her family’s killer at her home after church.
Instead of turning to bitterness and seeking revenge, this remarkable Christian woman has taken the incredibly narrow path of Christ to forgive the killer and to keep the friendship with the killer’s wife.
Wow, I don’t know about you, but to me this is an unbelievable story. I just cannot fathom loosing all of girls by a killer and having to forgive the killer and to be friend the killer’s family. Could you?
Unless reported and brought to our attention, the countless stories like the story of Mukantabana remain otherwise unknown to us. So, I am very glad to have come across this article, however unbelievable it was to me when I first read it.
Yet, knowing how Jesus died on the cross to forgive and free you and me, his once enemies who would be right there to shout “Crucify him,” along with the Jews back in time, I shouldn’t think the story is unbelievable. A follower, a disciple to think, feel and act just like his or her master would shouldn’t surprise us.
Her story powerfully illustrates how Christians are called to be God’s marker of contrast in people’s lives. God invites each of us to make differences in other people’s lives.
- To be God’s marker of contrast, get to him who defies way things are and seeks to bring changes that seem unlikely, impossible, and unbelievable!
If you trace back the story of apostle Paul and the people involved in his life, you begin to understand that we serve God who defies way things are in the world and does things that are unlikely, impossible and unbelievable.
How unlikely was it for Paul, the chief persecutor of Christians, out of all people to be chosen by God to be his witness to the Gentiles? How unlikely was it for Peter who cowardly denied Jesus Christ to become his bold witness?
Saul, also known as Paul, passionately hated the fact that Christians believed Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Savior, the Messiah promised by God. His hatred was so intense that the journey over hundreds of miles from Jerusalem to Damascus was a worthy cause for him. Saul was on hot pursuit to capture any who believes Jesus Christ as the Son of God to imprison and to get rid of them. But as soon as God changed Saul’s belief, his conviction, his way of life, it says in verse 20, having spent several days with the disciples in Damascus, “At once he began to preach in the synagogues. What was the major theme of his preaching? His message was centered on the very thing that he hated the most and persecuted Christians for, namely Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He passionately hated Christians, Jesus Christ. Yet, having changed, having been born again, having been converted, he passionately loved Jesus Christ and his people.
Isn’t it ironic how the hunter had become the hunted? The hunter who used to be on the hot pursuit after Christians to imprison them and put them to death, but now we see him in verse 23-25 being hunted by other Jews. As he was committed to rid of Christians, now he was surrounded by equally committed Jews who conspired to kill him, who “day and night watch[ed] on the city gates in order to kill him.” In 2 Corinthians 11:32, Paul recorded that he was also hunted down by the governor under king Aretas. Both the Jews and the Arabs hunted him down. Once with his head high, he went around to hunt down Christians, but we see him in verse 25 barely escaping the hands of the hunters with the help of followers who took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall.
When you and I get comfortable with way things are, the stories of Acts instruct us about God in motion to change things completely, to turn things upside down, to do things that are unlikely, impossible, and unbelievable.
We need to recover this vision of God who is after real changes in his people that defy expectations, common sense, way things are. God is after the real changes in your life and my life. We should expect nothing less from God who does impossible things.
Consider the life of Abraham. When Abraham was seventy years old, when he was just an ordinary person going about his business, God came to him and invited him to walk with him because he had many promises he wanted to fulfill through Abraham. God wanted to bring about unlikely changes in Abraham’s life, to give him the Land of Israel, to make him into a great nation, to bless him, to make his name great, to make him a blessing to others, to bless all peoples on earth through him, to bless him with a son in his old age, in Sarah his wife’s old age.
Have you discovered God who calls you is God wants to bless you with changes that may seem unlikely, impossible, and unbelievable to you?
- God wants to use you as his marker of contrast.
Here was the situation going from verse 25 to verse 26. Just reading these two verses, it is easy to make an inference that not too much time had elapsed. But, for those of you who have been studying Galatians, you are aware that Galatians 1:18 informs us it was not until three years later that Paul was able to visit Jerusalem.
So, when verse 26 speaks of Paul coming to Jerusalem, it was after three years since he became a disciple of Jesus Christ. Apparently even after three years later, Saul’s reputation of having been a chief persecutor of Christians didn’t go away for it says that when he “tried to join the disciples… but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.”
And, what you read in verse 27 is the word, “but.” In this context, this word is classified by Low and Nida as a divine marker of contrast. The divine marker of contrast points to the moments and seasons when God brings about drastic changes.
In today’s passage, God’s choice to be his ‘marker of contrast’ in Saul’s life was Barnabas, who we first met back in chapter 4.
Before Barnabas stepped up as ‘the divine marker of contrast’, the disciples were unilaterally afraid of Saul because of his well known reputation of once being the chief persecutor of the disciples. Because of this, Saul’s motion towards Christians in Jerusalem was stalled. While people were gripped with fear and doubt thereby rejecting Saul Barnabas stepped up and became ‘the divine marker of contrast’.
Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles says verse 27. Here is the picture; when Barnabas realized that the people were gripped with fear and doubt over who Saul really was and rejected him, instead of going along with the rest, he took hold of Saul’s hand and brought him to the apostles. Barnabas took Saul under his wing[4] and brought him to the apostles. From Galatians 1:18-19, we understand that here Saul didn’t meet all the apostles, but only Peter and James, the Jesus’ brother.
When he took hold of Saul’s hand, under his wing, and brought him to the apostles, he began to explain to them about how Jesus showed up and personally shown himself and spoke to Saul. Saul’s conversion was evident in the drastic change of once hunter to bring down Christians becoming the hunted for having fearlessly preached in the name of Jesus Christ
When Barnabas stepped up and God used him as his divine marker of contrast, even though all the disciples rejected Saul out of their fear and doubt, Barnabas having seen God’s grace at work in the unlikely person became Saul’s biggest supporter.
Can you imagine how Saul must felt when he first came to Jerusalem after three years of having faithfully and fearlessly preached in the name of Jesus Christ in Damascus only to find out that he was not welcomed into Jerusalem church?
Can you imagine how Saul must felt when the fellow Christians brothers and sisters couldn’t get over the fact he used to persecute Christians although he had been a completely changed person for the last three years?
If nothing was done, if no contrasting changes occurred, if the spirit of rejection, criticism, insensitive to perceive what God was doing in Saul’s life, and fear continued, Saul’s disappointment would have turned into bitterness, anger, sadness. Rather than being positioned for further growth, Saul would have hard time growing as a Christian.
The unwelcoming spirit, the critical spirit, the fault dwelling spirit, the dull spirit that cannot perceive or even dream of God’s gracious activity in seemingly impossible people cannot be used as the divine marker of contrast. When God writes a story, he likes to use the word, “but” to mark the contrasting changes, going from death but to life, dark but to light, bondage but to freedom, depression but to joy, laziness but to diligence, uselessness but to usefulness, worthlessness but to worthiness, ineffectiveness and unproductiveness but to fruitful life.
And, the way God uses “but” in his story telling is by using you and me to mark these contrasts in other people’s lives just the way he used Barnabas in Saul’s life.
Simply put it, God invites you and me to be his agent of change in people’s lives. He invites us to make differences in people’s lives.
à Apply
I cannot think of anything else that would top the experience of being used by God to be his mark of contrast in people’s lives. Can you think of any experience that would be more meaningful than to be used by God to make differences in people’s lives, contrasts as drastic as day and night?
Can you think of what might be more meaningful than being God’s marker of contrast in others to help them go from darkness but to light, gloom and depression but to joy, restless but to calmness, dryness but to revival, defeats but to victories, apathy but to vibrant and living faith, head knowledge but to heart knowledge of God, being rejected but to being welcomed and embraced with love and kindness, being discouraged but to being encouraged, torn down but building up, unforgiven but to forgiven?
Can you think of what might be more meaningful than being God’s agent of positively contrasting changes in people’s lives?
[1] http://www1.macys.com/campaign/rwanda/story.jsp
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/15/amanpour.rwanda/index.html?iref=newssearch
[3] http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/15/amanpour.rwanda/index.html?iref=newssearch
[4] Darrell L. Bock, Acts: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Baker, 2007, p. 369.
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