The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on April 17, 1988. The title is, Continually Blessing God, and the scripture reference is Luke chapter 24, verses 36 through 53. 

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. Reading from chapter 24, beginning at the 36th verse. Jesus himself stood among them, but they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they had saw a spirit.

And he said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do you questionings rise in your mind? See, my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.

And while they still disbelieved for joy and wondered, he said to them, Have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them. Then he said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, Thus it is written that Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. and behold I send the promise of my father upon you but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

Then he led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up his hands he blessed them and while he blessed them he parted from them and was carried up into heaven and they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God. The Gospel of the Lord. The period between Easter and Pentecost had to be a very strange time indeed, perhaps one of the strangest periods in the history of the world. It's very difficult for us to think our way or feel our way back into what it was like for those first apostles and disciples, but I'm going to ask you to try to do that for a couple of minutes this morning. Jesus, having been publicly mutilated and destroyed, returned from the grave three days later, victorious over death, showed himself alive with unmistakable proofs to his disciples.

They went from disbelieving for joy. Isn't that a marvelous phrase? They disbelieved for joy, but quickly that disbelief was swallowed up in a sense of joy and excitement and expectancy as they came to realize he truly was alive.

Death had lost its sting. Hell and the grave and Satan himself had all had their fangs pulled. But there is this strange 40-day period in which Jesus appears and disappears.

He comes and he goes. You never know where he's going to be next. Just as you're summing up your courage to ask him a question, it seems he is out of sight again.

He's in a garden. He's on a road. He's in a locked room.

He's on the seashore. He's in Galilee. He's in Jerusalem.

First he's with Mary, then with the other women, then with Peter, then with Cleopas and his friend as they're making their way back to Emmaus. He's with the ten. He comes back a week later and makes a special visit for Thomas' sake to the eleven.

At one point he visits more than 500 brethren at a single time. He cooks breakfast on the beach and then he's ascending into heaven. Here, there, elsewhere for this strange 40-day period.

And then comes an additional ten days while they're waiting. He said, wait for what? They're not sure.

The promise of the Father, wait until you are clothed with power from on high. I'm sure they had no idea what that would mean when it actually came to take place. In fact, they didn't know how long they'd have to wait.

But Luke says they were continually in the temple. the mighty temple in Jerusalem the center of all things Jewish the focal point of life and worship day after day in the temple where everything in the liturgy everything in the ceremony everything in the prayers everything in the scriptures everything in the worship is pointing forward to the coming of a Messiah whom they, these first disciples, knew had already come. Can you get into that mentality?

The priests are continually offering sacrifices for sin. And the disciples know that the sacrifice has been offered. The prayers of the people are begging God to send them a Redeemer who will rescue them.

And the disciples know that he's already come and done his perfect work. The veil of the temple which separated everybody from the holiest of all places. The high priest alone could go in there and he only once a year on the Day of Atonement.

The veil which had been rent from top to bottom on Good Friday has long since been repaired. And yet the disciples know that it's become irrelevant. God has opened the mercy seat to all who will trust in Christ.

The high priest continues going about his many duties, and the disciples know that he's become redundant, completely unnecessary. The book of Hebrews says Jesus Christ abolished the whole Levitical priesthood when he established his own high priestly ministry. There's no point in the stand-in continuing to rehearse when the star has already finished the show.

And yet, they're continually in the temple, watching all these things take place, participating, no doubt, as good Jews in the prayers that are being offered, singing the songs, watching the sacrifices being burned, and they know that it's all been fulfilled. What a bizarre time. What a strange never-never land.

There are two things that I want us to think about as we try to put ourselves back into that very unusual time. The first is this. They waited.

They had been commanded to wait and they did so. You might wonder why. After all, they were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.

They had seen him, touched him, talked to him, eaten with him, handled him. It says Jesus opened their minds to understand all those scriptural prophecies that previously had been completely opaque to them. Now they understood how it fit together.

In fact, he opened the scriptures themselves. And beginning with Moses, it says he interpreted to them throughout the law and all the prophets, all the things in all the scriptures concerning himself. What a Bible study.

Wouldn't you have loved to have been there? You remember what we read last Sunday, that on Easter evening he breathed the Holy Spirit into them and he gave them power and authority to forgive other people's sins. He commissioned them to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything that he had taught them.

Why did they wait? What more did they need? He said, stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

Actually, not all of them stayed. I mentioned a moment ago that more than 500 brethren were present at one point when Jesus appeared to them. And yet on the day of Pentecost, how many were present?

120. So nearly 400 had seen him alive, but for whatever reason weren't there on the day of Pentecost. And it's an interesting footnote to the story that when the apostles finally left Jerusalem to get on with the job of evangelizing, they discovered that the news of the resurrection preceded them wherever they went.

Evidently, some of those who had seen the risen Christ, when they were scattered going back to their homes or wherever they were going, they gossiped the gospel as they went. But the 120, at least, did as Jesus said. They waited for the promise of the Father.

They waited until they were clothed with power from on high. It's an interesting thing. Jesus didn't begin His ministry until He was baptized by the Holy Spirit.

Till He was clothed with power from on high. He, the Son of God. The eternal, incarnate Son of God.

very God of very God, light from light, true God from true God. He didn't begin his ministry until the Holy Spirit anointed him with power and he commanded the apostles not to begin theirs until the Holy Spirit anointed them. I wonder how many of you know that it's possible to believe all the right things, believe all the right things about Jesus and even to know him in a personal way.

It's possible to have his spirit inside you. It's possible to be eager to share the good news of his gospel with others and still miss being clothed with power from on high. How many of you know that?

I think that is the terrible indictment against most of the church in most of history. And it is certainly the tragic indictment of the Episcopal Church in our own generation. St. Paul said to the Corinthians my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God we've seen some of that here at Truro from time to time we've seen wonderful healings and other signs and wonders and movements of God, we've seen some of His power being released, but may I say too little, too infrequently?

And it seems as if when God does something marvelous among us, we get all excited about it for a while, and then, you know, it kind of dissipates. The fizz goes out of the Pepsi, and we settle back to where we were. Business as usual.

Peter prayed in the book of Acts Lord grant to us your servants to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus that ought to be business as usual amen that ought to be business as usual That we would speak God's word with all boldness. And as we're faithful to do that, he stretches out his hand to heal with signs and wonders. That's normative, biblical New Testament Christianity.

Paul said the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power. The kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power. Bishop Alden Hathaway from the Diocese of Pittsburgh was sharing recently that as a bishop of the Anglican Communion, he has got to read endless papers in preparation for this summer's Lambeth Conference.

Every ten years, all of the bishops of the Anglican Communion gather for about a month at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and they share together what's happening in their part of the world, and what they're learning, and what they need to pray for, and it's a time of coming together. It happens only once every ten years, and it's going to happen this summer. And he said all of the bishops have to read all of these position papers and reports and so on.

And he said this, that the papers prepared by the American bishops are almost entirely filled with social gospel, liberation theology, and radical liberal politics. And the papers prepared by the third and fourth world bishops are filled with Jesus. And what it is to enlist in his service and be persecuted and even martyred.

And what it is to know the empowering of his spirit and to see God building a church with signs and wonders. In the American papers you hardly even hear the name of Jesus mentioned. And in the third world and fourth world papers you hardly hear anything else.

Do you know that God is pouring out his spirit on the Anglican communion in Africa for instance? in parts of Asia so mightily that they can hardly keep pace with the way people are coming to Christ and being healed and being delivered of evil spirits and seeing miracles take place. It's normative.

Did you know that? And here we've almost entirely missed it. You know, for the first time in history, when the bishops gather together this summer, more than 50% of them are going to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Did you know that? Because God is doing such a work elsewhere. And the Americans won't know what hit them.

I mean, they're coming in thinking that we've got it all together with our sophisticated wisdom and our technology and all of our computerese and our strategies and our programs. and they're going to run smack into reality. Pray.

Pray. Pray for your bishops. Pray that God does a mighty thing as they come up against what He's doing elsewhere in the world.

Let's not be concerned just for the bishops. What about you? What about you and me?

Have we gone through the motions and believed the right things and maybe even sung the choruses and to some extent missed the reality? The apostles waited in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. That's what it's all about.

God has more for us than right doctrine and good intentions. He wants us to move in the power of His Spirit. And if you haven't known anything of what I'm talking about in your own experience, I'd like to invite you to stay at the close of this service.

We would like to talk with you and we would like to pray for you. We have the Life in the Spirit seminar and various other opportunities, and many of you are involved in that, but don't miss it. If you're not involved in that, if you don't know in your own experience what it is to be empowered with the Spirit of God, I invite you to stay.

What a tragedy it would be to miss this great blessing. The other thing I want you to notice is this. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.

Even before they got what they were waiting for, not knowing what it was they were waiting for. They were blessing God. That's how they spent their time.

Let me read it in context. It says, Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands, He blessed them. While He blessed them, He parted from them, and was carried up into heaven, and they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple, blessing God.

He blessed them, and they blessed God. Do you get it? He blessed them in order that they might bless God.

How many of you know that what we're here for this morning is not primarily that you would get a blessing? Not primarily. But primarily that you would be a blessing to God.

Not that we would get a blessing, but that we would give a blessing to Him. We say, bless me, bless me, bless this, bless that, bless him, bless her, bless... And God says, bless me.

Bless me. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that is within me, bless His holy name.

I said some time ago that our worship is not to be evaluated on the basis of what you get out of it. But it's on the basis of what He gets out of it. That's what worship is.

Worthship. You, Lord, are worthy of being praised. Sometimes we feel like doing that.

Sometimes we're so up that we can hardly keep from blessing Him. Lots of times we're not. And He's still worthy of praise whether we feel like it or not.

Which is why the Scripture speaks about a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. we make the sacrifice of offering Him praise, whether our hearts are in it or not, whether our feelings are in it or not, because He's worthy of praise. And of course, the wonderful thing is that as we do so, our feelings begin to rise to the occasion.

As we bless Him, He pours out His blessing upon us. Because the Lord God of Israel is enthroned on the praises of His people. and that's what we've come for whether you realized it or not his name is worthy to be praised I will praise the Lord as long as I live I will sing praises to my God while I have being I'd like to ask you what you think God feels when some of us stand there stony faced not even opening the book let alone trying to sing do you think he cares about that arms folded I'll stand but that's it I call upon you to gird yourself to offer the sacrifice of praise our communion service is filled with praise music it's for a purpose it's for you to enter into the praises of God don't leave it to the choir.

They'll get the blessing and you'll miss it. As they bless God, they get blessed. As you bless God, you'll get blessed.

You know what a man told me a couple of weeks ago? He said a couple of Friday nights ago at prayer and praise, the worship was so anointed that it just kind of went on and on. And he said, in the midst of praising God, I felt a physical touch.

She said, I've been experiencing heart trouble for the last several months, and I've been on medication. And as we were in the midst of praising God, I found that constriction just loosening, and I've had no pain since. See, as we were praising God, He stretched out His hands to heal with signs and wonders.

Do you get it? Now, I don't know if you've ever thought about this before, but I want to close with this thought. that my two points this morning are inextricably related to each other.

They waited for the empowerment from on high, and they waited continually blessing God. The mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost came at the conclusion of a ten-day prayer and praise service. And you've heard it said, Pentecost will enable your praises and it will.

But you know what? Your praises also enable Pentecost. Do you understand what I'm saying?

In a sense, they praised it in. As we begin to lift up our voices and lift up our hearts and lift up our heads and lift up our hands to praise God, He draws close to us and He makes Himself known. and He empowers us and He gives gifts of His Spirit and He does wonderful things.

You want God to fill your heart with His Spirit? Then you fill His courts with praise. You want to see signs and wonders and miracles?

Then begin singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart. You want to see Him supply your every need out of His riches in Christ Jesus? then make your requests known unto Him with thanksgiving.

And my God will supply your every need. Pentecost enables our praises, and our praises enable Pentecost. If we would be filled with His Spirit, then let us begin blessing God continually.

Let's bow our heads together. Lord Jesus thank you for the gift of your spirit thank you for what we have experienced of him to date we ask you for a still more mighty outpouring with signs and wonders and healings and miracles we ask you that the father may be enthroned on the praises of your people and that he will draw close to him as we seek to draw close and bless his name. We ask it for your own namesake.

Amen.