April 12, 2026 - 2nd Sunday of Easter - Acts 5:29-42

There’s a problem that crops up in the church at various places and times throughout history. It’s one that we suffer from here in the United States. It isn’t persecution. Sure, we have some of that here, but not like many other places in the world. It isn’t heresy. We continue to deal with heresies of various sorts and they continue to divide the church. Sometimes we’re able to put them down, but more often than not they just splinter the church just a little bit more.

While those are both problems, the one that the church in America often suffers from is the problem of blandness. The church is just, well, it’s rather dull. The stuff we do just isn’t all that exciting. We gather together. Most of the time you sit there, but sometimes you stand. You sing a few songs. We have a few prayers. You listen to some things for a while, at least if you’re not daydreaming, thinking about the game on tv later, or planning your grocery list. Maybe there’s an activity or two here or there, like potluck or something, but then you go home. There isn’t much else to it.

Most people can find other things they’d rather do. Even before the modern age, when people don’t know how to be bored and demand entertainment every moment of every day, people still found other things they felt were better uses of their time.

In generations past, the church didn’t have to worry about this so much. There was more social pressure to go to church and people grew up just knowing it was something they had to do. Whether it was exciting or not wasn’t really the question. You did it because you were supposed to. That isn’t so much the case anymore. Sure, you’re still supposed to go to church, but when that isn’t ingrained in kids from a young age, they find plenty of other things to occupy their time. The problem afflicts both young and old, sports, bedrest, even schoolwork can all be used as reasons not to go and they all come with the veneer of being productive and helpful. Why bother with church when these other things will be a bigger benefit to me in the long run and are more interesting to boot?

The church has gradually recognized this problem. Some branches of the church try and fix the problem by sprucing up the worship service. Maybe if we can make this time a little more entertaining, people will be more willing to come and check it out. Growing up in the age of Saturday morning cartoons, I knew what time every cartoon I wanted to watch came on and which channel. If church is basically an hour long cartoon, maybe some people will look forward to that entertainment time and make a point to be there. The other benefit to this is that you make the whole “church” thing easier to understand. Learning curves drive people away. So if everything gets simplified to the point that even a kid can handle it, then it will be far less intimidating for newcomers who want to come and check it out.

Other branches of the church call for revival. The Great Awakenings of American history, going back to the early 1700’s, were all about stirring up the church to make Christian faith visible far and wide. That’s what it was in theory. In practice, it was more like watching a horror movie. It’s wasn’t that there was lots of scary monsters and gore, but rather that people went for the fear factor. They wanted to be afraid for their lives, for their souls, only to then feel that relief when they heard that the bad things weren’t going to get them because they were faithful. It’s the same sort of reason people watch horror movies. There’s always the relief that comes from learning the bad things can’t get you. Revivals are still very much a thing in our country. If you aren’t there for the sense of relief then you’re probably there to show off just how faithful a Christian you are. Both of which can be reliable motivations for the right kind of people.

A newer trend is to try and recreate life in the church the way the first century Christians would have worshipped. The thought is that the church has added all of this extra fluff over the centuries, especially to worship. If you get back to the way things used to be then church will feel more authentic, more genuine. Many people are turned off by things that feel fake. So the church should worship like it did before all of the fake stuff got added in.

It’s true that the apostles are a bit different than most Christians today, but not for the reasons most people think. The apostles here in Acts are quite a bit different than they were in the Gospels. They’re the same people. They’re still common people from common walks of life. They are just as faithful, more or less, as they always were. Their job description has changed a bit. Now their primary work is to be apostles, people sent by God to spread the Gospel message. Before, they were disciples, tasked with following Christ and learning from his words and deeds. That’s a fairly minor change though. In both cases, their lives are dedicated to serving God and being about the work he has given them to do.

No, the big change has come, not because of anything they’ve done. The change is because of the resurrection. As we saw last week, the apostles had no good reason to lie about it. This isn’t bluster or bravado. Their willingness to stand up to the unbelieving religious leaders comes from their confidence in the resurrection. Jesus talked about it all during his ministry, sometimes through allusion and sometimes directly. His followers didn’t understand the whole idea of Jesus dying and rising again or just disregarded it as nonsense. Now they see. Now they know. They understand Jesus meant precisely what he said. He died and he rose again on the exact timeline he explained to them beforehand.

They aren’t going around all macho and smug thinking that they’re just invincible because God will strike down anyone who tries to interfere with them. They aren’t bullies. They aren’t pushing people around. They’re just going about the business God has given them and they’re doing it without any fear as to what might result. Why aren’t they afraid? Because Jesus just conquered death! What’s the worst anyone can do to them?

The church doesn’t need pop-y, upbeat music, videos, lights, and fog machines. The church doesn’t need a revival, at least not in the sense people usually talk about them. It doesn’t need to ditch everything and go back to how the early church did things, throwing out the centuries of thought and reflection that led to the liturgy and practices we have today. The apostles didn’t have any of the things many today consider necessary for the church to thrive. They weren’t substantially better than anyone today, nor were they substantially worse. They were everyday people. The only real difference between them and many today who call themselves Christian is that they saw what God had done for them and they took it to heart. They still made mistakes. They still sinned. They still had their questions and even doubts, as all sinners do.

Through it all, they took seriously what God had promised. They understood what Good Friday meant and what Easter meant. They saw how Christ had done it all for them and how everything would be different now. They were different now. They had been set free. Christ had trampled down the devil. He had thwarted death. He had paid the price of sin. All of the worst enemies that lurked out there in the world’s darkness had been dragged out into the light and defeated.

We don’t spend a lot of time studying God’s Word. We don’t spend time in prayer. We don’t take time to consider and give thanks for what God has done for us. We trust God in the broad strokes, but we leave him out of everything else in our lives. We don’t apply his gifts, his promises, his love, to every part of our day. We don’t see how different our lives would be knowing God’s forgiveness, his love, and his power over death and Satan throughout each day and so we don’t live like it.

It is a true blessing that our salvation isn’t dependent on us. Christ died for us whether we take the time to consider it or not. He rose again whether we give thanks or not. He loves us whether we ever think about him or not. He does all of this entirely on his own, without any contribution or thanks from us.

The penalty for your sins has been paid. Death has been defeated. All of this has been done on your behalf by a God who chose to come to earth to take on mortal life, suffer, die, and then rise again. Our job isn’t to do the work of salvation. That’s already done for us. We simply receive it and give thanks for what he has done for us. Our eternity is secure through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

But Jesus doesn’t just die and rise again for our eternity. His work matters to us now, today. The world around us is full of uncertainty. Doomsayers flock to the news every day, shouting about wars, environmental collapse, worldwide famines and pandemics. People are lost in despair because they feel there is no hope, nothing to look forward to, nothing that can help them.

We are not those people. There is no doom God cannot overcome, whether on a worldwide scale or just in our little lives. There is hope. There is something to look forward to. There is a God who can, and does, help. We are people who have heard all of that, who have seen all of that, who know all of that. Taking the time to be immersed in the love of God here in his house, and then to continue seeing what his work means to you throughout your life. It means there is nothing to fear. There is nothing to worry about. Any danger, any gloom can only be temporary at best and some are things we just imagine because our sinful mind still has difficulty trusting God.

The more we take God’s words to heart, the more we will see him at work. The more we see him at work, the more we will trust him. The more we trust him, the more peace we will find in our lives. The church’s problems aren’t fixed by changing all of the external trappings. The church is only fixed by spending more time with its savior. Take some time this Easter season to consider the resurrection. Consider your eternity, your resurrection in the new creation, but consider also what that means for you now. It isn’t that your life will be different. Your life already is different because of what Christ has done for you. Take the resurrection to heart and give thanks for what your loving savior has done.