Families Are Great

Text: Acts 1:12-26

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be

acceptable and pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.

          Families are great. And marriage, as instituted by God, is the foundation on which families are built. Obedience to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply blesses couples with children. And so we have families, the institution around which society is built. And I think it’s fun to be in a family. Everyone contributing from their own places of skill and character. Lifting each other up and strengthening each other. Families are great.

In the Book of Genesis, the Lord called the twelve tribes, the sons of Jacob, the whole family of Israel, to be his covenant people. I think twelve makes up a perfectly sized family, even if mine is a couple short of that. All God’s people gathered into one communion. The family of Israel was the full portion of God’s faithful people. Family is great.

Until it’s not. While family members contribute their unique skills and personalities to the family, the closeness that families have can also bring out the worst in us. Fighting and bickering, jealousy, power struggles, and differences of opinion. They’re all a part of a family. So, families are great…until they’re not. Even the perfect family of God. His chosen people didn’t act like the perfect family all the time. In fact, they had all the problems our families today have, and maybe even more. That fullness of the family of Israel was destroyed by the unfaithfulness of Dan, the first of the children of Israel to turn from the Lord God. We hear about this in Judges 18 as the fellowship of God’s Israel is broken. The twelve are now eleven: broken, incomplete. The outward appearance of unity and completeness might be maintained, but what is broken cannot make itself whole again. Sin cannot be undone, unless God Himself should do it.

It seems like the consequences of sin are everywhere in the relational strife that we face on a regular basis. And not just within the foundational institution of the family, but in all other institutions that flow from it. Strife abounds in our communities, in our government, and among nations throughout the world. How can the work of sin be undone? And how can God’s people be made one again, as Jesus prayed for in His high priestly prayer that we heard from our Gospel reading?

During the days that immediately followed Jesus’ ascension, the eleven remaining disciples and the other followers of Jesus, about 120 in all, awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit by devoting themselves to prayer. Their prayer arose out of their study of the prophets—who had pointed to the incarnation of Christ, His ministry, sufferings, death, and resurrection. Their prayers also arose out of the Psalter which was the prayer book of the twelve tribes of Israel, of the whole people of God, of Christ Jesus, and of the Church in all ages. And as they prayed from God’s Word, passages from Psalms 69 and 109 came to Peter’s attention. This was a Word from the Lord to direct their action. Because just as Israel had been broken and scattered because of sin, so, too, the full number of the apostles had been broken by the sin of Judas. The Twelve were now only the eleven. And the full number had to be restored.

“So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” But why only one more witness? Why not choose both Matthias and Barsabbas. It seems that they both were qualified for the role. So qualified that they simply cast lots since there was no other way to decide between the two. If it were just a matter of witnesses than why not have 13 instead of 12. And later on, the number of those who proclaim the resurrection does increase as Paul, and Barnabas, and Apollos all begin to preach and recruit others to do the same.

At the beginning of His earthly ministry, Jesus chose twelve men, the living picture of Israel made one in Him and in their call to follow Him faithfully. Their unity, like that of Israel, was broken by the unfaithfulness of Judas. And this time there’s no possibility of maintaining the illusion of fullness. The fellowship, the community, the oneness has been broken. This is what sin does. It drives us away from God and away from one another. It takes things that are whole and full and makes them partial and empty. It takes what God has made perfect and shatters that perfection.

But the restoration of the Twelve is the very picture of our Lord’s saving work. His death breaks the power of sin, and His resurrection proclaims healing for the broken and reconciliation of those driven apart by sin. So, filling the place that Judas deserted and restoring the full number of the Twelve not only brought an additional witness to the resurrection, but it was also a witness to the power of Christ’s resurrection to reconcile the estranged and make his people, His new Israel, whole. The clear message of this act of choosing a 12^th apostle is that

GOD’S PEOPLE ARE MADE ONE BY CHRIST’S SAVING WORK.

          This man who would bring the number of the apostles back to 12 would be like the 11 in that he faithfully followed the Lord and was a witness to all He said and did during His earthly life. And as with the other 11, he was a follower of the Lord, not by chance, his own decision, or his own act of commitment, but because he had been called by his Lord.

There were two disciples out of the 120 who met those qualifications: Joseph, also known as Barsabbas and by the Latin name “Justus,” and Matthias. And we know nothing about them. They’re strangers to us. Except for the fact that they meet the requirements of an apostle. What’s important about both of them is that Jesus called them and they faithfully followed him.

“Then they cast lots.” This decision seems so important that the method of determining which of them would restore the full number of the new Israel seems almost inappropriate. Like determining who gets shotgun when two people call it at the same time. Or which kids gets the last sliver of cake that’s left on the plate. It’s like throwing dice or drawing straws. It seems like they could have done some interviews or conducted thorough background checks.

But the truth is that the assembly isn’t making the selection. Neither the will of man nor good luck nor blind fate will determine the outcome. The choice isn’t in the hands of men, even men who have called upon God to assist them. As with the 11, so now the Lord who called them at first would choose one to complete their number. The whole matter is out of their hands. And God’s choice is Matthias.

In that choosing, the full number of the 12 is restored. This is the fruit of the saving death and resurrection of our Lord. Israel is made whole in Christ. What was torn apart by sin has now been put back together. It’s interesting that we’re never told anything else about Matthias. All our attention becomes directed to the apostle’s witness to Christ and the power of His resurrection. This Good News is proclaimed for nations and individuals as the church going forward. The church that’s led by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit. And now the church raises up witnesses and ministers, even in our age, to go into all the world, inviting all to the Baptism that incorporates us into Christ and makes us members of his body. We announce forgiveness to the sinner and hope to the unbeliever. And in this we’re called to oneness in Christ and with all believers. In this way, each and every one of us are called to be witnesses to the resurrection. It’s what we’re called to do as we take on the name of Christ. So that the world may know, even today as things seem to be falling apart around us, that we are the family of God. Made new by our restoration which is sealed with the blood of the Lamb. So that we might lift each other up and strengthen each other for the work of the Lord that’s ahead of us. Because that’s what the family of God does. It’s great to be a family! Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.