19 April 2026 - in the breaking of bread

Today's Readings
(Audio)

And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

Sometimes Jesus is near us, guiding us, and transforming us, before we realize that is is him. His action in meeting with Cleopas and his companion was subtle at first. He guided their conversation, making rehearse again the very difficult things that had taken place in recent days. But he didn't bring up the things that had occurred in order to re-traumatize these disciples. We can sense a playfulness in the tone with which he spoke, hinting that he himself was the only one who truly understand everything that had happened. Sometimes Jesus brings awareness to our past not in order to set in the stone as the foundation of our future but to re-contextualize it. Others might try to tell us what happened, as with the women who astounded them with talk of angels and the resurrection. But it is altogether possible that such talk is sometimes too distant from our own experience for us to be able to connect with it. Hence we sometimes need Jesus guiding us through our own experiences until we reach a point when we are open to revelation. It may not be obvious that it is him acting. But eventually we will reach the end of what we are able to say about things. We will say what we ourselves witnessed, what the women said, and what the disciples found. We will express that these results are not enough for us to maintain the hope we once had. But when we reach the limits of our perspective and come to the end of ourselves we sometimes able to open ourselves to a higher perspective. We may come to see that there is no way our point of view could be the whole story.

And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?"

In most normal circumstances when a stranger says such apparently unkind things to us we are likely to push back and argue. We might launch into an explanation for why what we saw looks nothing like any sort of prophetic fulfillment we can imagine. We might even try to tell the stranger how the darkness of Good Friday could not possibly be part of any plan. But when Jesus is the one with whom we are walking, and the one who chastises us for our foolishness, we can realize that yes, he is right, we have been foolish, and that the seeds of hope were there all along. We remember that Jesus didn't start by making this point, but first guided them to a place in their own hearts where they could receive it. It was something that he all but had to do incognito. Too much of his presence too soon might have only confused things and prevented their continued openness to his guidance. Giving them an objective explanation up front would not likely have been something they could connect with their own experience. 

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.

The second part of the plan of Jesus for these disciples was what must have been the greatest Scripture study of all times. We might have thought that his revelation of himself would come first and that he would then use Scripture to explain the details of the story. But Scripture was foundational for how he desired to reveal himself. It wasn't that they hadn't known Jesus in some sense before. But they hadn't yet truly known him as Lord. To know him in this way was only possible with some understanding of his context, from which they could know that he was the fulfillment of God's plan for humanity, and begin to make sense of the necessity of the Paschal mystery, both of his dying and his rising.

As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, "Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over."

We might have thought that the Scriptural exegesis of Jesus would have been sufficient to accomplish his revealing himself to Cleopas and the other disciple. Certainly it contained all of the salient context. It demonstrated how the all of the word of God pointed directly to the Word of God who was himself opening the Scriptures to them. And yet, even with that, they weren't all the way there. They did not yet recognize him. But they knew that they wanted more, and so they asked him to stay.

And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.

Jesus leads us to the mass and opens the Scriptures to us. But it is in the Eucharist that we have the fullest revelation of who he is. He is genuinely present in the Scriptures through his Spirit, which is why we say that they are living and active. But in the Eucharist we taste and see the reality of the presence of Jesus himself. Everything else is meant to prepare us to be open to this revelation, to this gift of himself, that he becomes for us, in order that we may receive him. After that, it is no longer just knowledge. We ourselves have tasted the very Body and Blood of the risen Lord. Suddenly and unexpectedly the clouds hanging over us clear and we discover a new and profound sense of purpose. Where we were before heading in the wrong direction we now about face toward Jerusalem. Our one desire becomes conveying the transformative reality of the resurrection which we ourselves now know firsthand.

Shane and Shane - Psalm 34 (Taste And See)

 

18 April 2026 - small craft advisory

Today's Readings
(Audio)

We know from the other Gospels that it was at the word of Jesus that the disciples set out to cross the sea toward Capernaum. This must have made the storm that encountered all the more discouraging. Would they have blamed Jesus for failing to foresee it? Or, if they didn't expect that he could foresee it, would they have been discouraged that even the commands of Jesus could be compromised by unforeseen circumstances in the same way as any other plans? Either way, the danger they faced was obvious. And Jesus did not seem like a likely candidate to help, since it was because of him that they were out there. 

The disciples were like those men in Psalm 107 who "went down to the sea in ships" (see Psalm 107:23-30) and experienced "the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea", the raw, unconquerable power of God expressed in nature. The disciples themselves no doubt "reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end". But Jesus himself came to them, walking on the waves, as only the Lord himself could do. So the disciples responded as like the men in the psalm:

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress. 
He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.

At first they were terrified because that was the normal human response to the revelation of divinity. It was another form of what Peter experienced when he said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (see Luke 5:8). The power and unpredictability of divinity was greater than any storm. Indeed, the existence of a storm was only possible because God allowed it. Thus the disciples were uncertain that they were any safer in the immediate presence of the Lord than they were in the storm. That is, they were uncertain until he spoke, saying "It is I. Do not be afraid". His greeting cast out the fear from their hearts, and his presence stilled the wind and the waves around them. He was not, finally a God of confusion or of chaos but of peace (see First Corinthians 14:33). Yet he was not a force that could be tamed. They wanted to take him into the boat with them, to themselves manipulate the forces of divinity for their own purposes. No doubt they thought they wouldn't have to worry about the weather if he was with them. But this proved both impossible and unnecessary. Somehow it was as though the space between them and their destination was shortened such that "the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading". This was just as the psalm described:

Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.

When it comes to the signs of Jesus we tend to prefer those like the multiplication of the loaves which satisfy our human needs and desires. But signs like the calming of the storm at the sea do more to reveal the identity of Jesus to us than could any miracle involving satiating our appetites. We would prefer it if we could come to fully realize the reality of the divinity of Jesus without having to experience it from within storms of trials and difficult circumstances. We like to imagine that we would believe it if he simply used his power to keep us always and everywhere safe from such distress. But the fact of the matter is that he permitted and indeed caused his disciples to experience that storm for the precise purpose of revealing that he was a power greater than the wind and the waves, greater even than the chaos of the tohu wa-bohu of the creation narrative in Genesis. It was only from that perspective that they could truly understand that they were in fact dealing with one who was above all of the forces of the creation, that those forces themselves obeyed him.

From our own trials we are meant to learn both that God is beyond are control but also that he is good and on our side. He does not often lead us by the paths we would probably choose for ourselves. But he does always, if allow him, lead us to the haven we desire.

See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.

Vineyard Worship - I Stand In Awe

 

17 April 2026 - bring it to Jesus

Today's Readings
(Audio)

A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.

The crowds had a shallow interest in Jesus. They were seeking entertainment more than truth. As we will see, they would be content with an infinitely available earthly bread, and did not know how much better a heavenly food could satisfy them. Noticing the supernatural signs that accompanied Jesus without reading more deeply into the reason for the signs caused the people to attempt to drag Jesus down to the level of an earthly king, rather than allowing themselves to be elevated to participation in a heavenly Kingdom. But this was a problem uniquely affecting the spectators. The disciples who were directly involved had a different set of challenges before them.

When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.

Apparently Jesus sometimes allows us to deal with questions that don't have good earthly answers in order that we might respond by placing our trust in him. He allows thoughts about our own insufficiency to arise within us so that we can turn to him in our need. He does not keep the questions from arising in our hearts. But does happily supply us with the answers.

Philip answered him,
"Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little."

Jesus did not immediately and completely resolve the issue, since he wanted to lead his disciples deeper into faith and the circle of grace. Philip hadn't completely surrendered to despair. He had expressed the apparent impossibility of rising to meet the circumstances, but he said so in a way that suggested he may have been open to having his viewpoint corrected. Such a starter place is better than nothing. We tell the Lord that things seem hopeless, at least from our perspective, in order that he can tell us why we're wrong.

Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?"

Jesus wanted his disciples to do what they could do so that he could then step in and do what was beyond them. But he was always the necessary center of the action. The loaves and fish wouldn't have been worth mentioning in a normal context. Only in the sense of, 'Maybe Jesus can somehow make use of these', did it make sense to refer to them.

Feeding the crowd was a task that was well beyond what the disciples could accomplish utilizing their own abilities and resources. Normally when we hit a wall like that we expect that if it is to happen at all Jesus will step in and do the whole thing for us without us. But it turns out that he often does something different, something which requires more trust on our part. He asks us to be involved, including our own insufficient ideas and resources in his ultimate supernatural solution. He has, of course, no need of us. But he desires us to entrust ourselves to him so completely as to be actually involved in spite of our insecurities. 

Jesus said, "Have the people recline." 
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. 
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.

Jesus became for the crowd the good shepherd who made them to recline in green pastures in order to set a table before them. His heart was moved with compassion for the crowd, shallow and superficial though they were. After all, they were like sheep without a shepherd. They had until then lacked leadership that could guide them to a deeper life. But the way he chose to show his mercy was through the sheep of his flock that were already close to him, who had already begun to learn to hear his voice. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised when he wants show his mercy to others through us, even though we ourselves have no more than five loaves in two fish in the grand scheme of things.

When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
"Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted."

There is an obvious reference to the Eucharist in the feeding of the five thousand. Though John did not include the Institution Narrative in his Gospel he was obviously familiar with it, and used the same language in his description of what Jesus did here. He alluded to it obliquely by its absence. Thus, gathering the fragments had a particular significance for the consecrated bread, that was no longer ordinary, and ought not be wasted. But it has significance for us as well, for the times when Jesus does intervene in our own lives and use us as agents of his grace. Such events do happen first for the people he desires to bless, but also for sake of the transformative effects that they are meant to have on the people through whom grace is given. Yet this latter is less obvious. We are tempted mostly to remember the difficulty and the effort of being involved. We must learn to treasure the words and actions of Jesus in our hearts, as Mary did, if we are not to take them for granted. We see this in the extreme from the disciples who were persecuted by the Sanhedrin in our reading from Acts:

So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin,
rejoicing that they had been found worthy
to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.
And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes,
they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus.

Peter Furler - Psalm 23

 

16 April 2026 - the same only different

Today's Readings
(Audio)

The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.

Jesus wants us to understand how he is different from other men. He was born of a virgin and possessed a real human nature, and thus looked as human as anyone else. He was found to be human in appearance, but was actually also in the "form of God" (see Philippians 2:6), and "the exact imprint of his nature" (see Hebrews 1:3). People looking at Jesus could see the former but not the latter. But they often noticed that Jesus did not speak as ordinary men did. There was something different about his word. It possessed a unique authority that the words of other teachers did not. He spoke with confidence about what he had "seen and heard", the heavenly realities which he had directly known and experienced from all eternity. Other teachers were limited to discussing of earthly things since they didn't have access to the heavenly realities themselves. When they tried to speak about matters beyond their ken they could offer nothing more than guesses and inferences. That is why the wisest men did not strive to know what was too exulted to be known and too inaccessible to be discovered by unaided human reason.

I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me. 
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me (see Psalm 131:1-2).

However, as it turns out, the heavenly things are not irrelevant to us even though we are creatures of the earth. We are of the earth but our destiny is not meant to remain at the level of the earthly, the finite, and the mortal. We must therefore believe the Son, the only verified expert on heavenly matters, so that he can guide us to our eternal destiny. Thus, anyone who "believes in the Son has eternal life". Note, however, that belief is contrasted, not with doubt, but rather with disobedience. Belief that avails for eternal life is therefore obedience to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The choice to believe or disbelieve is not merely a blind chance or random guess. It is our response to the revelation of the one who is perfectly trustworthy and unfailingly good. To reject him is to reject truth itself and goodness itself. When we do believe our own minds begin to heal from former darkened ways of thinking. The fundamental tenet that becomes the basis for our thoughts is that the words spoken by the one who is the Truth are true. It may seem obvious in hindsight. But all our negative patterns of thinking pretend this is not the case. Instead, we think like Adam and Eve who wished to know for themselves the difference between good and evil. But when we certify that God is trustworthy things begin to change for us. We open ourselves to Jesus, upon whom the Father does not ration the gift of the Spirit, who in turn pours that Spirit out on us as we are able to receive it. It is precisely this Spirit that is our own entry point into the life of the Father and the Son, and a foretaste even here and now of the life we hope to live forever with them.

but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains upon him

If we insist on clinging to our own truths rather than conforming our lives to the truth of God we will not be able to avail ourselves of the rescue mission that Jesus came to accomplish. Rather than being delivered from our default condition of darkness we will remain under God's wrath, we ourselves being the ones who have culpably chosen to remain in this state. Instead of this we must learn to be committed to God's words over and against the opposition of any merely human words such as those of the Sanhedrin to the Apostles:

"We gave you strict orders did we not,
to stop teaching in that name.
Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching
and want to bring this man's blood upon us."
But Peter and the Apostles said in reply,
"We must obey God rather than men.

Newsboys - We Believe

 

15 April 2026 - rescue ops

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.

God sent his Son Jesus as a rescue mission for humanity. In strict justice he might well have sent him as a mere confirmation of the condemnation which we had brought upon ourselves. But instead he sent him as a savior, to save us from what we had become. However, the first step to recovery required admitting that there was a problem, something we were loathe to do. Thus, when the light came, we preferred the darkness. We did not want to call sin what it was or to acknowledge the presence of darkness in our hearts. The light did not come to condemn, but it did, by virtue of existing in our midst reveal our fallen condition, our darkness and our sinfulness. Yet multiple responses to the light were possible. Rejecting it may have been the norm, but it was also possible to acknowledge what it revealed. Doing so opened up the pathway to the possibility of recovery. It could lead to salvation, in which state one would no longer need hide his works from the light. Instead, for such a one, "his works may be clearly seen as done in God". 

In order to experience salvation we need to be humble enough to at least acknowledge that we have a problem. Our hearts don't always love as God would have us love. We don't even always love others to the lower standard of how we would have them love us. We often prioritize ourselves, but not in ways that conduce to our growth. We chose addictive behaviors and destructive patterns over constructive choices that can make us grow in virtue.  

God didn't send the light of the world among us merely to punish us or make us suffer. He did so because he loves us and wanted to make us the kind of creatures fit for eternal life, actually capable on enjoying eternity with him forever. After all, all other goals are ultimately unsustainable. If we push too insistently into any other trajectory we will eventually crash and burn. Humanity in it's fallen state is a ship that is sinking, circled by sharks. Let's not waste our time discussing how the water does not in fact look so cold or how the sharks might in fact by dolphins. Jesus is waiting to bring us up into the ark of his Church where we can be safe from the fate that otherwise awaits us. But he will not force us. He'll allow us to go down with the ship of the fallen world if we choose. May we not do so.

Once we know the salvation of God our cozy relationship with the fallen world must change. The fallen world will inevitably try to drag us back down, just as the religious leaders threw the Apostles in jail to try to silence them. They didn't want to hear about the light. But the Apostles did not for that reason condemn them. Rather, because they were trying to love the world as God himself loved it, they did not abandon it in order to content themselves with having themselves obtained salvation. Even when they encountered what, from a human perspective, were insurmountable obstacles, the prison and the guards, they did not despair or give up. And because they did not the world found it was unable to stop or silence them, as it had been unable to stop or silence their Lord.

But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison,
led them out, and said,
"Go and take your place in the temple area,
and tell the people everything about this life."

The world needs to know about this life, the life of Christian community that we enjoy in virtue of our baptism. We can't allow ourselves to be imprisoned or pushed aside into religious ghettos. We must take center stage, wherever that stage may be. For the Apostles it was the Temple. For us it will be the places of discourse where we interact with people of other viewpoints. And there is no sphere that can be excluded, including the public square. We can do this without fear. We may well encounter persecution and hardship. And yes, if our goal was ultimately about comfort that would be plenty of reason to fear. But that is not our ultimate goal when we want what God wants. When we do so he will absolutely empower us to do what he wishes and become what he desires us to be: his witnesses. 

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.

David W Morris - Let Us Exult His Name

 

14 April 2026 - go down to go up

Today's Readings
(Audio)

If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

Sacramental realities like baptism contain both an earthly and a heavenly aspect. There is the water, on the one hand, which is richly symbolic. On the other, there is the Spirit, the agent of transformation who imparts grace to the believer. Jesus seems to recognize that he must ground his communication with us in things that are familiar and intelligible in order give us access to realities which are transcendent and invisible. We are creatures compromised of both matter and Spirit, and he addresses himself to us accordingly. But he does want to lead us through that which is earthly into participation in heavenly realities. He wants to guide us to the spiritual and immaterial realm in which the Father himself dwells in inapproachable light. But we can't bypass the earthly and jump straight to the spiritual. If we will not believe Jesus about the necessity of baptism how can we hope to be sufficiently docile to be led into the life of the Triune God? 

There is a certain humility that is required when Jesus deals with us as the sort of creatures we in fact are. After all, we are not angels. We are not beings that comprehend everything at once with no intermediate steps. We must be willing to be taught by means of parables and led by means of Sacraments. These things may seem excessively simplistic to our prideful egos. But what we mistake for superficiality is in fact clarity and profound and inexhaustible intelligibility. The word of God is similar. On the surface there is the literal meaning which educated men like Augustine found embarrassingly inelegant. But in addition to the level of the letter there is also the level of Spirit, which is life-giving. But the historical sense is foundational. Without it, the spiritual sense seems fanciful and irrelevant, in the same way that a prophecy that never comes true is not an authentic prophecy.

No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.

Jesus, by means of his incarnation, is the bridge between the earthly and the heavenly. Only he has perfect clarity and complete understanding of heavenly realities. Only he can revel the Father to us. By shunning parables, Sacraments, and the letter of Scripture, we are in fact also shunning the human nature Jesus chose to assume for our sake. But when we embrace these we embrace not only the human Jesus, but also, through him, the Triune God. We are thus caught up in the invisible realities which Nicodemus wished to know. Such a desire was not wrong. It only needed to be properly ordered.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

One particular instance of realizing the spiritual meaning of Scripture is presented to us today. The saraph serpents in the desert were more than merely a punishment for a specific instance of disobedience. They were symbolic of the poisonous nature of sin itself. So too did the mysterious way in which the effect of the saraph serpents bite was finally negated point forward to the way in which God ultimately dealt with sin itself. Because we can read the literal meaning of the historical text we come to understand things about both the nature of sin and salvation that would be otherwise more obscure. Just as the serpents revealed the ugliness of disobedience so too did the cross reveal the ugliness of sin. Gazing on what the people had wrought in the form of a bronze statue allowed them to be healed. Gazing upon what our sin did to the spotlessly innocent lamb of God allowed us to experience salvation. But we see that there was absolutely no way around reckoning with the problem. 

Let's believe Jesus about earthly things so that he can then reveal to us heavenly things. Then our communities of faith on earth will more and more closely come to resemble heaven itself, as was the case with the early Church described in Acts.

There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need.

Keith Green - Easter Song

13 April 2026 - bigger on the inside

Today's Readings
(Audio)

for no one can do these signs that you are doing
unless God is with him.

One can see the plausibility of the signs from an outside perspective, external to the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus recognized that the signs that Jesus was doing required a supernatural explanation. He saw that God must be cooperating with Jesus in order to allow him to do things which were not possible in the natural order, but which were full of the goodness and mercy that was characteristic of God. He was unable to determine more than this, however. He was limited by his normal human understanding which obtained only to the natural and the earthly. He heard Jesus talk about being born again and interpreted it in a literal sense. However, since he recognized that resulted in a non-sequitur he asked Jesus to clarify.

Nicodemus said to him,
"How can a man once grown old be born again?
Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"

Like us all, Nicodemus had been born of flesh, was a member of the human race, created in the image of God. But this did not give him the wherewithal to understand the new spiritual reality that had sparked his curiosity. He needed a new beginning, a new birth, an origin that was rooted in divinity and not only in humanity. Only from the inside could one truly see the Kingdom of God so as to understand it. And only as a child of God did one enter that Kingdom. The way that one who was not a God's Son by nature became a child of God was by sharing in the Sonship of Jesus. This was brought about through the sacrament of baptism by which the believer was united with Jesus himself, in which water symbolized death and rebirth. The new birth, however, was real, and came about through the Spirit was given by the Father, making the newly baptized into sons and daughters of God. What Jesus was by nature believers became by divine adoption through baptism.

Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

What Nicodemus wanted to see and understand was something that could only be grasped from within. This was not because of elitism, or because of the layered secrets of mystery cults. It was rather because spiritual realities required spiritual interpretation. Or, put another way, what God was doing in the world only made sense to those who had the mind of God. To the those possessing a merely human mind God once said through Isaiah, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (see Isaiah 55:8). But the baptized are able to say with Saint Paul that "we have the mind of Christ" (see First Corinthians 2:16). Normal human intellectual capacity could never discover the fact that God was a Trinity. But the person renewed in the Spirit could believe it. And not only could he believe it, but he had in fact entered into the reality of the love between the Father and the Son, the very Spirit himself who was brought about his new birth.

The wind blows where it wills,
and you can hear the sound it makes,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes;
so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Those born of the Spirit are hard to understand for outsiders. They care an awful lot about things that seem abstract or implausible to others. They are motivated to seek first things to which nonbelievers are entirely indifferent since they cannot perceive them. They seek to move in response to the will of God as sailboats respond to the wind. But it is for the most part the family of God that experiences his guidance in this way. Nonbelievers look upon these waters and seem to see boats sailing rapidly, even on days that seem to them to have no wind. We think of Paul who sometimes initially made plans to go in one direction but was then prevented by the Spirit and then allowed himself to be redirected somewhere else. And we think of Philip whom the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took away somewhere else after he had baptized the Ethiopian. 

It is the Holy Spirit that inspires Christians to withstand tyrants and corrupt leaders as did the disciples described in our reading from Acts. They understood that this sort of opposition was foreseen in the divine plan and were thus not overly disturbed by it. They saw it as a fulfillment of a prophetic psalm.

Why did the Gentiles rage
and the peoples entertain folly?
The kings of the earth took their stand
and the princes gathered together
against the Lord and against his anointed.

But the Apostles did not rage or entertain folly in response. They did not meet the hostile oppressors on their own terms, since they had been indeed shown a different way by Jesus their leader. Instead of human retaliation they chose to rely on the Spirit to equip them to respond and then to guide that response.

And now, Lord, take note of their threats,
and enable your servants to speak your word
with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal,
and signs and wonders are done
through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook,
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

The reason we are often unable to be bold in the face of opposition is that we tend to try to meet them on their own terms. Let us instead learn from the Apostles and seek the Spirit even and especially in times of crisis. The world absolutely needs bold Christians now as much as ever. It does not need vitriol or even arguments so much as it needs signs and wonders that reveal the lordship of Jesus himself. Once people recognize that reality the rest will work itself out in turn.

David Crowder Band - Here Is Our King