April 21, 2019        We Are Witnesses                                

This past week, I read in my old church letter from Zion UCC, that Marcella Loekle had passed away. Marcella was a very special woman, a woman of faith, who you could say, was raised from the dead.

     At the age of 73, Marcella had a stroke, the kind of stroke that all of us fear, the kind that leaves the majority of our bodies paralyzed, and requires a feeding tube because we cannot speak or swallow food. For the first month, Marcella laid in her hospital bed, despondent, feeling that her life was over. One day, when the chaplain came to visit her, she wrote on a piece of paper with the one hand that she could still move, “How did I do, that God would do this to me?” And the chaplain replied, “O Marcella, This stroke wasn’t about how good or bad you have been in life, God sends both the rain and the sunshine upon all of us, the good news is that God gives us faith to help us rejoice in the good and cope with the bad.

And Marcella thought about this, She was not naive, she knew what it meant to believe in Jesus Christ, and the power of Christ’s spirit to heal and make new our lives,  but like many of us, she also had those prideful thoughts of growing up in the church, that her religion made her special, and that God would reward her by keeping her from harm. It was quite crushing to realize that this wasn’t the case, but she didn’t lose faith. Marcella looked past these ideas and saw how she had been blessed in her life, and so she decided to put her trust in God to help her cope with her stroke and she got down to work.  

For the next 5 months, Marcella struggled to retrain her muscles, the muscles that let her breathe, speak, eat, the muscles of her legs, her arms, her abdomen and back. Each day she would awake with the pain of atrophying muscles, but she would force them to work, and work, and work, until the day, six months after her stroke, when she was sent home with a walker, because she could take care of herself.

And from that moment on, whenever someone had a stroke, Marcella found someone to drive her to see them, and she would share her experience, and the faith that God had given her to day by day, step by step, recover control over her muscles.

As I read the scriptures for this Easter Sunday, my eyes caught upon the phrase, “We are witnesses”,  and “Chosen as witnesses” that Peter said before the crowd. Peter spoke about his experience of Jesus faith, and the miracles and wonders, and words that came from his faith, and he was sharing that faith now with others, bearing witness to how Jesus Christ had brought forth life from death, had given new life to those who were dying, and finally himself, came forth from the dead and was raised to life again.

Now I believe, that like Peter, and like Marcella, we have been called to be witnesses to the power of God in our lives. The power of God that has helped us to overcome the loss of a loved one. The power of God that has been there to help us through an illness. The power of God that has helped us through a time of trouble in our lives. The power of God that has given our lives meaning. Each of you, who is gathered here today, has a story about the power of God in your life, and so, you are witnesses, and you have a powerful witness, that can be shared with others.

That powerful witness, is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ! To a faith in a God, who cares about those who are crucified by the world. To a faith in a God, who cares for the sinner, the lost, the stranger, the foreigner. To a faith in a God who stands on the side of those who are discounted, rejected, outcast, and enslave. To a faith in a God who loves each and every one of us. To a faith in a God who can raise from the dead, all who are persecuted and oppressed by the world. Throughout history, it is this faith, that those who believe in Jesus Christ, have had faith in, and God has been with them in their struggles, and brought them forth from their slavery and oppression.

So we are witnesses, called to share with others, the way in which our God has brought us forth from slavery and oppression, to the powers of sin and death in our life. We are witnesses to share with others who are experiencing sin and death in their lives, that there is hope for their lives. We are witnesses to those dead and dying, in our world today, to the new life and resurrection that we believe in, through faith in Jesus Christ. Be witnesses to the next person you meet, tell them about your faith, and invite them to come and worship with you. For what it means to have a resurrection faith, is to bear witness to the works of Jesus Christ, and the power of God in your life, that has made your life new! Happy Easter!!