Luke 24:45-49
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
After following him around for three years, the disciples are only now having their minds “opened” so that they can comprehend what they’ve witnessed. They’ve seen Jesus preach to large crowds. They’ve seen him heal many people. They’ve seen him calm storms and raise people from the dead. Most climatic of all, they’ve seen him betrayed, abandoned, executed, and—wonder of wonders—come back to life again. It is at this moment, and not before, Jesus opens their minds that they might understand the significance of what they’ve witnessed. And Jesus concludes by in fact declaring his disciples to be “witnesses.” What does he mean by this?
It may help us to start at the most basic meaning of the word. A witness is a person who knows something by personal presence or perception. This is especially so when the circumstances of that something are in legal dispute. A witness offers testimony about what they’ve experienced that is recorded and has legal status. It thus becomes a legal basis for establishing fact.
This legal nuance was as much true of the term in Jesus’ day is at is in ours. This means that Jesus’ disciples can offer legal testimony to the world about Jesus’ ministry and his person precisely because they “are witness of these things.” What things? His teaching? Sure. His miracles? Of course. But most important, his suffering, death, and resurrection. It is for a full understanding of this testimony that Jesus “opened their minds.” It is on the basis of this testimony that “repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.” The Apostle Paul himself recognizes the importance of this connection when he declares in 1 Corinthians 15:17 that if Jesus was not historically raised to bodily life, that the Christian proclamation is without factual merit and damnably void. It is therefore because they bear the testimony of Jesus’ death and resurrected life that their entire identities can now be summed up in one word: witnesses.
And this is true even for us. We are witnesses because we bear testimony about Jesus. This means of course that we can and ought to share our own personal stories about what Jesus has done in our lives. But the testimony we offer, like that of Jesus’ disciples before us, is of a fundamentally more profound nature than any one person’s life story. So profound indeed is this testimony, so central to our common identity and purpose, that together we repeat the content of that testimony every Sunday morning:
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
By calling us “witnesses,” Jesus gives us a clear sense of what it is that we about in the world. By tying our identities into that of a witness on the stand in a court of law, Jesus mandates us to speak truthfully about him to the world. We do not to bear testimony about ourselves, or even primarily about our own experiences with Jesus, as important as those are. We bear testimony about him, in whom God acted in history once and for all to restore the human race. Indeed, it is because of the certainty of his life and passion that we have confidence to speak of him to our friends and neighbors who have not yet heard our collective testimony about him. Let us then with boldness give them the truest testimony they will ever hear:
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
Look for final part of this series, entitled “Ut Unum Sint”, soon. For the original setting of these devotionals, see my introduction to the first post in the series here.
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